


Why the Mann Brothers Should Not Get Ideas

by KHGiggle



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: 10th Class, 11th class, 12th class, Drabbles, I don't own any of the videogames or known works that show up in here, I must be insane to do this., OFC - Freeform, Runs on genuine imitation valve time, That counts as a disclaimer right?, Updates will likely be sporadic at best, Written by someone who can't play tf2 to save her life, You'll know when you see it., minor crossover, nonsexual nudity/partial nudity, varying lengths
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-07-14 13:11:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 49
Words: 27,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7173125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KHGiggle/pseuds/KHGiggle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Classic mercenaries are being rotated out Redmond got the bright idea to hire an additional class to one-up his brother.  Which led to two more new classes for balancing reasons.</p><p>                                                                                             or</p><p>The author got bored and discovered Team Fortress.  Then she thought it would be a good idea to write about a game she can't play to save her life.  Seriously, what was she thinking?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How this got started

It was time to replace the mercenaries.

They were skilled, and they’d done their job well, but…they were getting old. It was starting to affect their performance.

So the Administrator had instructed Ms. Pauling to find replacements. Ms. Pauling had looked up files on all manner of active mercenaries and had selected several potential candidates to present to the Administrator, who would make the final choice.

Ms Pauling was surprised to see the Administrator drinking something distinctly alcoholic when she returned with the thick stack of folders. “Ma’am, I’ve narrowed down candidates for the positions. Did something go wrong?”

“Redmond had the bright idea to bring in an additional class in an attempt to gain an advantage over Blutarch,” explained the Administrator.

Ms. Pauling gaped. “We’re bringing in a tenth class?”

“And an eleventh and a twelfth. We need to maintain a balance, so that means one new class for each type of class.” The Administrator took a big gulp of her drink. “It’s annoying when they actually have ideas.”

“Do you want me to look for additional mercenaries?” asked Ms. Pauling.

The Administrator shook her head. “Not until I’m done designing the new classes. Fortunately, I have mostly constructed two of them, but the last one will take some more time.”

“Would you like for me to leave the mercenary dossiers with you?” asked Ms. Pauling. The Administrator nodded and gestured to a space on the console that was still clear. Ms. Pauling carefully placed the folders in the indicated spot. “I’ll go ahead and start drawing up contracts for the older classes.”

The Administrator nodded absentmindedly.


	2. The New Classes

Hunter (Offense)  
Class symbol: Kunai  
Purpose: Track members of opposing team and kill them.  
Default Weapons: Naginata, rifle, kunai  
HP: 160  
Special abilities: Able to track others via team colored trails.  
Pros: Can find and avoid members of the opposing team as necessary, short melee attack interval.  
Cons: Firearms not as strong as others, close combat works better but is not always the best choice.

Guard (Defense)  
Class Symbol: Shield  
Purpose: Guard location or person, counterattack as needed.  
Default Weapons: Riot shield (Does no damage), police baton, fists  
HP: 220  
Special abilities: Shields can take most damage, allowing her to weather even a Heavy assault.  
Pros: Very good at close combat, shield nullifies frontal damage when used, can identify Spies.  
Cons: No long range attacks short of throwing shield, which then has to be retrieved, can only defend in one direction, moves quite slowly.

Transporter (Support)  
Class Symbol: Dashing stick figure  
Purpose: Run supplies to team members while keeping them from opposing team.  
Default Weapons: Portal gun (Does no damage), long fall boots (Does no damage), crowbar  
HP: 125  
Special abilities: Heals automatically, does not take fall damage.  
Pros: Can move across the battlefield even more quickly than Scout if utilized correctly, and the gun and boots can be deadly if utilized correctly.  
Cons: Has low HP and attack power. Will not last long in a straight up fight.


	3. Meet the Team

Spy was his occupation, not his name. However, according to the contract of this new job, he was to go by his occupation in lieu of his name, which was just fine by him. It had been a very long time since he’d told anyone his real name.

Normally, Spy would not do this sort of job, but he was curious. The Gravel Wars were well known in his circle, and there were questions that had yet to be answered. There were rumors of people dying and coming back to life or just plain living longer than should be humanly possible.

So Spy had decided to take the job, and now he was in Arizona, outside a very large office building. He adjusted his suit, made sure his mask was in place, and headed inside to meet his teammates…

And walked into chaos. In the center of the floor were several people fighting amongst each other: A one-eyed black man in a kilt swinging a bottle around, a man dressed like a soldier trying to strangle the man in the kilt, an Asian woman with glasses and a very long pair of braids trying to stab them with kunai, and a young man in a baseball cap with a baseball bat he was using to wallop the others.

There were two groups of people watching, along with a lone…person…in a fireproof suit that hid everything trying to set the fake plants on fire. Spy went to stand with the closer group, the most prominent member being a very large bald man who was holding a heavy coat that, along with a sheen of sweat, suggested he was originally from a very cold place. There was also a well-dressed graying-brunette man with glasses who looked like an academic but was still in good shape, better than most academics would be. Between them was what looked like a very young girl (but likely wasn’t) at 5 feet tall with very short curly brown hair, striking green eyes, a large scar on her forehead, ratty looking clothes, and leather gloves. “How long have they been doing this?” asked Spy.

“Oh, they have been doing this for quite a while,” said the academic, giving away a German accent. “Do you suppose I will be able to keep their organs if they kill each other?”

…All right. The academic was some sort of scientist, possibly some kind of doctor.

“But-but they said we couldn’t die,” said the girl, somehow maintaining a perfect monotone despite looking worried and scared. Well, that was creepy.

The large man grunted. “Little Girl should not believe everything she is told,” he said with a heavy Russian accent, which explained the coat.

“I see…” Spy looked back at the fighting group. Now that he thought about it, that boy with the baseball bat looked familiar.

Oh hell, he recognized that boy now. That was just his luck. He decided to move to the other group in case this one noticed his reaction. The second group consisted of a short but stout man in overalls a hardhat, and welding goggles, a dark skinned woman with dark hair, blue almond-shaped eyes, a blue shirt, an orange jumpsuit with the sleeves tied around her waist, a very strange pair of boots with spring heels of some kind, and a strange white device he couldn’t identify, and a lanky, tanned man with a bush hat, aviator sunglasses, and a sniper rifle slung over his shoulder.

“-take it apart. I just want to look at it,” said the man with the hardhat, a southern American accent very noticeable.

The woman shook her head and shifted away, holding the odd device close to her body.

The hard-hatted man sighed before noticing Spy and turning to address him with a smile. “Hey there.”

Spy nodded to him. “Bonjour.”

“I’m the Engineer. You?”

“I am a Spy by trade, although I’m not clear why a Spy would be needed for a situation such as this one. We do our best work off the battlefield.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Engineer. He nodded towards the two next to him. “These here are Sniper and Transporter.”

A sniper made sense. Transporter…Okay, he wasn’t sure what that was. “My apologies, but what exactly are you supposed to do?” he asked.

“I run supplies to others,” said Transporter, a faint accent that he couldn’t quite place tinging her voice.

Spy nodded. “A support role then.” He turned to Engineer. “You as well?”

Engineer chuckled. “I’m a defensive class.”

Spy raised an eyebrow. “Really? I suppose you do more than repair equipment then?”

“You got that right. I can build a rocket-firing turret in less than an hour so long as I have enough material.”

…That made perfect sense. Engineer could set up a veritable nest within a relatively short amount of time. You’d either have to be bulletproof or invisible to get near him at that point. And that meant Spy was probably going to have to go after the enemy Engineer at some point.

Merde.

Spy gestured towards the fighting group with his cigarette. “How long has that been going on?”

“Well, the kid in the hat and the young lady joined in when they got here, but the Soldier and…I think he’s Scottish? Those two were already fighting when I got here.”

Transporter shrugged.

“The guy in the helmet said there was no such thing as Scotland,” said the Sniper. It was the first thing he’d said, and Spy was surprised to hear a distinctly Australian accent from him. Engineer’s surprised double take indicated he’d heard it too.

Given, Sniper was probably just Aboriginal, or partly Aboriginal. Most forgot that the ethnic group was immune to the effects of Australium, and they could have light skin.

“What about the…I’m sorry is that a man or a woman?” he asked.

Everyone looked at the person, who’d managed to set one fake plant on fire and was trying to set another on fire. “I have no idea,” admitted Engineer. “I know the previous Pyro was a woman. Uh, that’s short for pyro technician.”

Sniper groaned. “You mean that’s their job?”

“Yeah.”

“Bloody Hell.”

And then the sprinkler system went off. Spy scowled at his soaked suit. It was silk. It was going to be ruined!

The burning fake plant was extinguished, much to the Pyro’s disappointment. It also caused the fighting group to temporarily stop. “Are you quite done?” demanded a female voice over the intercom.

The Soldier punched the Scotsman. The Scotsman scowled and said something in a language Spy couldn’t identify. The Asian woman was tilting her head back and pinching her nose. The young man was grinning despite a split lip and a stab wound on his leg. The Big Russian elbowed the doctor. The doctor rolled his eyes and walked over to injured parties.

An elevator opened. “Step inside for the Bioscan and transportation to the locker room, where you will find your uniforms.”

Nobody moved.


	4. Trust Issues

Transporter had trust issues. Lots and lots of trust issues. She didn’t trust any of the people here. She didn’t trust the woman who’d shown up out of nowhere to offer her this job. Really, she didn’t trust anyone.

She must not be the only one since no one else looked like they wanted to move. Given, that might just be because some of them were getting medical treatment. She sighed and tromped over to the elevator.

She was an expert at escaping. She doubted this place could be any worse than Aperture.

The doors closed, and she started moving down with a jolt. She held up her portal gun, ready to move if necessary.

Then she was blinded by a sudden flash of light. She shook her head as she tried to clear the spots from her vision. She could just about see again when the elevator doors opened.

It was indeed a locker room. Transporter stepped in and glanced at the lockers. No names, just the classes. She moved to her locker and opened it up.

There was a duffel bag, a crowbar, a paper with symbols, and a set of clothes. She looked them over. Seemed pretty simple. She stripped off her clothes and put her new clothes on. She had a red, long-sleeved, button up shirt that she tucked into red pants with several pockets with some sort of straps on the back. The lower part of the pants didn’t have pockets so she could fit her long fall boots on. Over her shirt went a white Kevlar vest with her class symbol on the shoulders. White fingerless gloves finished it off.

She couldn’t remember what it was like to have clean clothes. It felt nice.

The elevator was closed, so she tossed her clothes into the duffel bag and left through a door that was marked as an exit.

The exit turned out to lead to a garage with several vehicles: A dirty, brown pick-up truck, a dirty white RV, and…a catering van? Transporter walked over for a closer look. Yep, it was a catering van. Why did they have a catering van? At least the pick-up truck and RV made sense.

Someone else came out the exit. It was the kid with the baseball bat. He saw her, grinned, and came over. “Hey.”

Transporter raised an eyebrow.

“So you’re…” He paused and looked at his own sheet of class symbols. “Transporter. I’m Scout. Wow, I wonder how long it’s going to take to get used to being called Scout. I’ve always been-”

“No names,” interrupted Transporter.

“Oh, right.” He made a face. “Stupid rule. Why can’t we just use our names?”

Transporter shrugged. She honestly didn’t know, but she didn’t really care either.

“Where’re you from anyway? I’m from Boston!” he proclaimed proudly.

What. “But you have a Brooklyn accent.”

Scout scowled. “My family’s Italian!”

Transporter honestly didn’t know if an Italian accent was the same thing as a Brooklyn accent. She was struck by an idea. “E come faccio a sapere che?”

Scout’s mouth fell open before he nodded. “C-come ha fatto-perché lo sai italiano?”  
  
She shrugged. “Il mio vicino era italiano.”

Scout tilted his head. “Questo è tutto?”

“Questo è tutto.”

And that was when the man in the helmet came running out. “We are in America! You must speak English! It is the law!”

“It is not!” protested Scout.

Transporter had no idea if that was an actual law or not and decided not to argue. Instead she glanced at the Class symbol guide, which identified this guy as the Soldier. Actually, that wasn’t much of a surprise. He’d been wearing an army helmet even before he’d changed into his uniform.

“Yes it is a law!” insisted Soldier. “Otherwise no one would understand each other!”

Transporter rolled her eyes at the pointless argument. From what she could see everyone here could speak English. It wasn’t a big deal if they had knowledge of another language.

The big Russian guy walked out of the elevator with a large gun that had Chell resolving to avoid his counterpart and checking to see who said counterpart was.

Heavy Weapons Expert. Bit of a mouthful.

The Heavy Weapons Expert (Hereby shortened to Heavy) walked over to the two arguing men and physically separated them. “Little baby men stop fighting. Already caused problems for team.”

“I refuse to listen to a communist Russian!”

“Heavy is not Communist,” deadpanned Heavy.

“You are a Russian so you must be a Communist!”

Heavy paused. “Heavy is not Russian."

Transporter and Scout gave him a look of disbelief. “You cannot fool me! You talk like a Russian!” insisted Soldier.

“Has Soldier heard Heavy speak Russian?”

Soldier paused. “No.”

“Then Heavy cannot be Russian.”

“…Okay.”

That actually worked? Transporter had noticed that at least some of her coworkers seemed a bit crazy, but she hadn’t thought it would be that bad because of the type of work it was.

Soldier had certainly proved that wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations courtesy of Google. If anyone reading this actually knows Italian, feel free to help out.
> 
> "And how would I know that?"
> 
> "H-how did-why do you know Italian?"
> 
> "My neighbor was Italian."
> 
> "That’s it?"
> 
> "That’s it."


	5. Pickup Truck

They didn’t have any additional vehicles for transportation. They’d just have to make do with what they had.

“I can fit two or three people in the back of my truck,” offered Engineer.

Heavy suspected that was the only place he’d be able to fit comfortably and climbed into the back of the truck. Engineer didn’t react so he figured that meant it was all right. The man with the eyepatch clumsily climbed into the back as well before falling asleep. Engineer grabbed the little girl’s shoulder and steer her towards the cab. “Why don’t you ride with us? Should be room in the cab at least.”

The little girl nodded. Heavy noted her uniform (red button up shirt, black vest two sizes too large, black pants, black gloves, black boots) had a shield symbol that identified her as the Guard. Heavy had no idea how someone of her size could be a guard of any kind, but she must have some way to make it work.

Eventually they ended up splitting the rest between Sniper’s RV and Medic’s catering van and set out. Heavy groaned. He hated that this job was located in such a hot location.

“Are you okay?” asked Guard.

“Heavy is not used to weather being this hot.”

“…Are you really from Russia?”

“Yes, but Soldier not like Russia, so Heavy lie to keep peace.”

Guard looked away. “I, uh, why does Soldier not like Russians?”

Heavy gave her a confused look. “Russia and America do not get along. You do not know this?”

Guard shook her head. It was weird that she missed something that big. Then again Heavy had no idea where she was from. The monotone meant that there was no accent to give her away. Was there anywhere that the tension between Russia and America wasn’t known?

“I’m from Texas myself,” said Engineer. “Pretty sure the guy with the eyepatch is Scottish. He sounds like it anyway.”

That was true. Heavy was a bit confused by that particular accent coming from a black man, but he supposed that any ethnic group could immigrate anywhere.

“I, uh, I lived in Utah for a little while before I got this job,” said Guard.

It didn’t mean that she was actually from Utah, but at least it told them that she’d lived in this country for a few years. Heavy considered asking about the scar on her head, but decided that would be a bit much for the moment.

“Are-are you really killers?” asked Guard.

“Yep,” said Engineer.

Guard sighed. “You’re nice."

“Killers can be nice,” said Heavy.

“I know.”

Heavy was slightly curious. “Little Guard has never killed before?”

She twitched, raising her hand to her head before jerking it back down. “Just once.”

It was good she had killed before, but only once was slightly worrying. It could have easily been self-defense.

Would it be better if she did know how to kill? Would it be better if she didn't? Heavy huffed and decided not to press her.


	6. RV

Pyro flickered their lighter happily. People were always trying to keep Pyro from spreading rainbows and bubbles and happiness, but these people had said Pyro could spread the rainbows and bubbles and happiness to everyone every day. Pyro held their lighter to the table.

“If you set anything on fire I’m shooting you,” said the man in the cool hat who was driving. Pyro wondered how he had seen them. He wasn’t even looking.

“Do not worry,” said the masky man. “We’ll make sure the Pyro does not damage your van.”

The pretty lady with dark skin just kept staring at her. Pyro waved. She blinked. Pyro held out their lighter to her. The woman shook her head. Pyro pouted, remembered that no one could see it through their mask and flickered their lighter again. Masky man held out a cigarette. “Do you mind?”

Pyro happily lit the cigarette, which masky man promptly started smoking.

“No smoking,” snapped Cool hat man. Masky man ignored him.

Cool hat man suddenly threw an empty mason jar at Masky man without turning around, somehow hitting the other man in the head. “Me-You threw a jar at me!”

“Next one’ll be full if you don’t put out the light!” said Cool hat man.

Masky man growled and looked around for a moment before pausing at Pyro. “Is that suit fireproof?”

Pyro nodded.

“Would you mind acting as a make-shift ashtray?” continued Masky man.

Pretty lady’s eyebrows rose near to her hairline.

Pyro held out a hand. Masky man quickly used it to put out the cigarette and tossed it away.

“You better pick that up when we get there,” growled Cool hat man.


	7. Catering Van

Why, oh why, couldn’t he have gotten the quiet ones?

“I refuse to trust a Jap!”

He’d been standing next to two of them for crying out loud.

“Stop yelling at her!”

Okay, the big one would’ve been a tight fit, but the other one had been pretty compact.

“Shut up or I pull guts out anus!”

…Medic had to admit he’d like to see how she pulled something like that off.

“I’d like to see you try!”

Apparently so would Soldier. That or he was an idiot.

“No problem!”

There was a sudden ripping sound.

“Oh gross!”

Then Medic’s doves suddenly came flying to the front from the back where they had been, which caused Medic to swerve wildly as his vision was blocked. “Stop scaring my birds! Dummkopffs!”

“Birds are a sissy pet! You need a manly pet Kraut!”

“Was it just me or was one of those covered in blood?”

The woman said something in whatever language she spoke. Medic could tell she was Asian (not Indian or Russian), and that was it.

“We are in America! You must speak English!”

“Not this again,” groaned the Scout.

“It is the law!”

“Is not law!”

“You all shut up before I poison all of you!” shouted Medic.

It wasn’t as effective as he thought it would be. The Asian woman (Something to do with hunting?) darted up. “Ooh, what sort of poison?”

“…Cyanide.”

“That is a good one! I like improperly cut fugu. No one think it intentional,” she said with a grin.

“Hoo-goo? What is-”

“I am not done with you!” She was suddenly dragged back to the…back of the truck.

“Don’t grab a lady like that!”

Medic twitched. They better get there soon or he was liable to kill his so-called team mates.


	8. The Base

The base was in the middle of a desert full of red rocks. It reminded Sniper of home. It was a bit of an unexpected perk. Sniper eyed a lizard whose species he couldn’t identify as it scurried by and the rest of the team climbed out of the other vehicles.

A bunch of white birds flew out of Medic’s truck. Sniper stared as they perched all over Medic before deciding he didn’t want to know. Especially since this was the guy who’d be stitching him up if he got stabbed.

Instead Sniper took out his rifle and gun so he could put them in the locker room. He was planning on staying in his camper. He could never relax enough to sleep indoors.

“Anyone know where the lockers are?” asked Guard.

“There should be a sign outside the room,” said Engineer, pointing at some temporary looking signs that had names of locations and arrows written on them.

Sniper hoped those would be taken down by the time this war started.

The group as a whole made their way to the locker room. To Sniper’s surprise there was a spare rifle, gun, kukri, several boxes of bullets, and masonry jars already in the locker. He went ahead and put what he already had in there with the exception of his kukri in case someone tried to sneak up on him in his off hours.

He looked around, curious what the others used. Most had some manner of gun, shotguns being particularly popular. The Heavy has a huge gun that Sniper knew he didn’t want to be on the wrong end of. There were simpler things like baseball bats, crowbars, wrenches, axes. A couple of them seemed completely impractical, like the gun that looks to fire syringes (He’s sure the range is terrible.) and a long rod with a curved blade on one end. Not a lance, probably.

He still had no idea what that gun Transporter had was supposed to be. All he knew was that it didn’t look like it had any ammo, which made no sense, but he was starting to suspect that that was normal for these guys.

“So, I’d say there’s not much we can do except for eating dinner and turning in for the night,” said Engineer. “Who here knows how to cook?”

Sniper raised his hand because he did know how to cook simple stuff. Engineer had raised his hand too. There were a couple of others. Sniper figured that meant he’d be doing some of the cooking. He hoped they didn’t want anything fancy.

“So, who wants to cook?” asked Engineer. No one volunteered. He frowned. “Fine. I’ll do it tonight, but we are setting up a schedule. I am not doing this every night.”

Cooking for a dozen, some of which looked to be big eaters, every night. Sniper could see why Engineer didn’t want to cook every night. He wouldn’t want to either.

This was gonna be hard…


	9. Dinner

Engineer had experience cooking large amounts of food.

It wasn’t because he had a big family. It was because it had been obvious that he was going to replace his dad at some point and he’d been given some tips, including the fact that everyone had to cook at some point.

So Engineer knew how to cook enough to satisfy a team full of active mercenaries, more or less.

Some help would have been nice though. Still, he managed to put together some ham, mashed potatoes, string beans, biscuits, a good southern meal. He hoped it was something the others were willing to eat.

Turns out he didn’t need to worry. Everyone tucked in with no complaints, some more enthusiastically than others. “So, what all can you guys cook?”

“Ribs!” shouted Soldier.

“And?”

“Canned soup!”

Engineer made a face. Those were full of salt. “Okay…” Maybe he should pair Soldier up with someone. He turned to Hunter. “How ‘bout you?”

Hunter grinned. “Sticky rice, sushi, udon, teriyaki, Japanese food in general. I make a mean anju bread.”

Asian cuisine. Made sense. Hunter was quite obviously Asian even in her uniform (Red kimono top, no sleeves, black shorts, black fingerless gloves, black boots, and black stockings to her knees). Probably learned from her mama. He turned to Heavy. “What do you know how to cook?”

Heavy shrugged. “Meats. Boiled vegetables. Gruel. Sandviches.”

Not a lot. Maybe team him up with Soldier. Engineer turned to Guard, who blushed. “I only know how to make pizzas, and I have this skin condition so I’d need plastic gloves…”

“We can probably find some of those,” said Engineer. Or at least order some for next week. Pizzas were fine once every week or so but no more than that. He turned to Spy.

Spy smirked. “I know how to cook quite a few things,” he said.

Good enough for him. “Medic?”

Medic grinned. “I was a bachelor. I’ve learned how to cook simple foods.”

That was all they were getting out of him. That just left Sniper. “Barbecue mostly. Couple of vegetables.”

Maybe they should start a cooking class.


	10. Let's see what you can do

As always Soldier got up at 0500 hours to start his daily workout: 100 pushups, 100 sit ups, 50 pull ups, mile run, etc.

Only his run was interrupted today. By an explosion. “We are under attack!” He ran to the nearest supply room to grab a rocket launcher. “May day! May day!” He ran towards the smoking building, whose doors were open, to see the rest of the RED team standing on a platform except for Demoman. He was drinking something out of a brown bottle down below. “We are under attack!”

“No, that was just Demoman-”

“That sounds weird! Jus’ call me Demo!”

“-demonstrating his grenades,” finished Medic.

“We’re seeing what everyone is capable of,” explained Spy.

“Why was I not told about this?!” demanded Soldier.

“You weren’t in your room when we went to get you,” explained Engineer. “Figured Demo could get your attention.”

“An’ it worked!” shouted Demo. “What do you think of my special mix?”

Guard removed her hands from her ears. “Loud,” she whimpered.

“’Course it’s loud!” said Demo. “It’s an explosive!” He pulled out a gun. “An’ I got more where that came from!” He fired several spiky looking bombs that stuck to the walls. He pulled out a trigger, smirked, and detonated them.

“I also like explosives!” announced Soldier. He hefted the rocket launcher and was promptly tackled by everyone nearby. “Ow!”

“Do not fire a rocket next to us!”

“Dummkopf!”

“This is a horrible way to start the morning!”

After quite a bit of yelling, the rocket launcher had been confiscated, and The Heavy was sitting on him. He was heavy. It was in the name. Soldier couldn’t get him off. “Get off me!”

He was ignored. Spy looked down towards where Demo was stabbing a dummy with a broken bottle. “All right, that is enough,” said Spy. “We only have so many dummies.”

“My turn!” said Scout. He climbed down the ladder and ran at the nearest dummy, which he proceeded to hit with a baseball bat. Then he shot them for a couple of moments.

Soldier was not impressed.

Spy nodded. “Hunter? If you would?”

Hunter sauntered down and shot a dummy with a rifle before holstering it and throwing a bunch of kunai at the dummy, all of them hitting the target. Then she pulled the bladed weapon off her back and used it to cut the dummy into several pieces. She retrieved her kunai and strode back to the balcony.

Engineer went next. He could shoot, but he wasn’t so great at long distance. He did build a couple of machines that Soldier had to admit would be useful against the enemy.

Guard went next. Soldier was annoyed that such a small slip of a girl was on his team. He saw no way for her to carry her weight.

…At least until she used a riot shield to send a dummy flying into a wall, hit another with a baton so hard it was bisected, and proceeded to rip another apart with her bare hands.

Okay, he could see that being a decent fighter.

“Guard, can you restrain Soldier while Heavy demonstrates his skills?” requested Spy.

Guard studied Soldier for a moment. “Think so.” She placed her boot on Soldier’s neck.

Okay, now he didn’t like her again. Guard carefully grabbed Soldier’s arms and put him in a hold that he could not get out of no matter how much he wriggled. He was so busy trying to get loose that he missed Heavy’s demonstration and didn’t notice until Heavy was back, kneeling on his back. “Hey!”

“I believe it is my turn,” said Spy. He promptly turned invisible.

“Whoa whoa whoa!”

“Where’d he go?!”

Guard pointed. “Down there.”

*bang*

Spy had just shot a dummy in the head. “I prefer stabs to the spinal cord,” he said. “I am also quite good with disguises.” He climbed back up. “Sniper?”

Sniper just swung his rifle off his shoulder and fired. He hit the farthest dummy in the center of its head. It was pretty straightforward.

“My turn,” said Medic. He climbed down and pulled out…Well, it had syringes on it. Medic somehow managed to fire the syringes at a dummy. Then he took out a saw and lopped off another dummy’s head. He turned with a grin. “What do you think?”

“What about the machine on your back?” asked Engineer.

“The medigun can only heal. Although it would be useful if it could harm enemies at the same time,” mused Medic.

“Yes it would,” agreed Spy. “Transporter, your turn.”

Transporter aimed her gun at the ceiling and fired an orange circle onto it. The she fired a red circle under her feet. She then was falling out of the ceiling.

Huh?

Everyone stared as she fired a new red circle under her and a new orange circle on a different part of the ceiling. When she fell into the red circle, she fell out of the orange circle and onto a dummy with a crunch.

“It shoots portals!” realized Engineer. “That is amazing! Can it do anything else?”

Transporter pointed it at a torn apart dummy and used it to pick the dummy up without actually touching it.

“That is not a weapon!” shouted Soldier. It wasn’t. You couldn’t hurt someone unless you happened to land on them. “You need an actual weapon!”

Transporter gave him a look, pulled out a crowbar, and belatedly whacked a head.

“That was a sorry excuse for an attack!”

“Then why don’t you demonstrate?” suggested Spy.

“I will!” Heavy got off Soldier as he jumped off the balcony. Transporter retreated via a portal as Soldier fired of all the rockets he had. “That is a weapon!” He fired off his shotgun into a dummy until it wouldn’t fire anymore. “That is a weapon!” He hit what was left of the nearest dummy with a shovel. “That is also a weapon because it is sharp!” He bashed the dummy some more.

“Yes, it was very violent and destructive,” agreed Hunter.

“That just leaves Pyro,” said Engineer.

Pyro, who’d been playing with a lighter and humming, looked up at the mention of their name. “Hm?”

“It’s your turn to do your thing,” explained Engineer.

“Ooh!” Pyro scurried down and grabbed his flamethrower and promptly started setting all the dummies on fire while laughing happily.

“Okay, let’s see what you can do with the shotgun.” Pyro ignored Engineer and continued setting stuff on fire. “Pyro?” Pyro aimed up. “Oh dear…”

And then Pyro set Soldier, who hadn’t bothered to leave, on fire. Soldier screamed. Manly. It was a manly scream.

And then he woke up in what Engineer had dubbed ‘The Respawn Room’. Soldier blinked a couple of times as he tried to figure out what had happened and came to a single conclusion. “I was having a weird dream!”

That made perfect sense.


	11. I forgot to give this chapter a title

“I am so bored!” complained Scout.

“We get to start tomorrow,” said Hunter. “Then you can bash in as many heads as you want.”

Scout nodded. That was what he liked about Hunter: She understood how fun it was to hurt someone. Also she was hot and wore glasses. “Bet I can bust more heads than you.”

Hunter smirked. “Oh, is that the sort of game you want to play?”

“No playing. We have job to do,” interrupted Heavy.

Scout rolled his eyes. “Oh come on! It’s not like we can die.” Soldier had proved that. Yeah, Scout had been told about the respawn, but it had still been weird seeing Soldier’s charred body disappear and running into him later. “Why not have a little fun?”

Transporter snorted. “I don’t know about you, but I plan to avoid dying as much as possible.”

“You can talk?” deadpanned Hunter. Transporter gave her a look. “You never talked before. Pyro talks more than you.”

“Mmph mm mm!” interjected Pyro.

“See what I mean?”

“Running their gob isn’t for everyone,” said Demo as he took a swig of his scrumpy.

“…Have you been drinking all day?” asked Engineer.

“Aye!”

“I’m just saying! Why can’t we have fun if we can’t die?” pressed Scout.

“You ever fight another mercenary?” questioned Sniper.

Hunter gave a predatory grin. “I have.”

Scout hadn’t so he changed the subject. “I’ve been in fights since I was a kid. I can handle myself.”

“You better hope you can,” said Sniper. “Else you’ll be holding the rest of us back.”

Scout shot up. “I bet I could kill you in a fight!”

And that was when Spy came in with several plates on a cart. He raised an eyebrow. “Gentlemen? Is there a problem?”

“Yeah, this fuckass-” Scout pointed at Sniper. “Thinks I can’t hold my own!”

“Now hold on,” said Engineer. “We’ve never met each other. We don’t know what any of us are like in action.”

“I know,” said Spy with a smirk.

“You’re a Spy. You’re an exception,” deadpanned Engineer. “And some of us are obviously more experienced than others-”

“You callin’ me green?!”

“No, I mean, look at Heavy.” Engineer gestured towards Heavy.

Scout did. Heavy was already eating and didn’t look to care much about the conversation. “What about him?”

“How old is he?”

“Uh, I dunno. 40 or 50?”

Spy snorted.

“So, that’s 20 to 30 years as a mercenary, right?” continued Engineer.

Scout nodded.

“And you’re in your early 20s.”

“22.”

“So that would be…" Engineer paused. "Well, I can’t say I know when you started your work, but it would only be a few years compared to the decades of experience some of us have. And no offense, but you look like you should still be in high school so you look even less experienced than you actually are.”

And Engineer had a point, but Scout didn't want to admit it. “Yeah, well, what about Guard? I don’t see you guys ganging up on her!”

Guard blushed and looked down at her food.

“Little Guard does not brag,” said Heavy.

Hunter grinned. “He got you there.”

Scout huffed. He had no idea how to win this. “Oh shut up.” He sat down and started eating the stupid French food. Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.


	12. First Battle

Guard had barely gotten any sleep. She didn’t really sleep much though. She just stared at the ceiling for a while before making herself get up. She rubbed lotion on her hands and feet and put on her clothes. She put on the uniform she’d been given, frowning at how loose the bulletproof vest was. She was pretty sure that they were supposed to fit more tightly than that. Plus it probably made her look even smaller than usual.

Guard just sighed, grabbed her shield and baton, and headed for the cafeteria.

Oddly enough, she wasn’t the first one there. Soldier was. “Congratulations! You are not a lazy and pathetic excuse for a lump of lard!”

Guard blinked. “Lard…?” Did she want to know? Probably not. She glanced in the pot on the stove. It looked like oatmeal. She spooned some into her bowl and sat across from Soldier. The ‘oatmeal’ had no taste to it. “So…Do you usually get up this early?”

“Yes, I do!”

Guard winced. “Do you always shout?”

“No!” And then realizing that he probably missed the mark… “No. I do not.”

Maybe Soldier wasn’t the best person to have a conversation with. Guard just ate the oatmeal as the other members of RED filed in over time. Some were chatty. Some weren’t. Guard wasn’t really paying attention because she was lost in her thoughts.

Soon everyone was walking to the respawn room. The others started checking their equipment. Guard stared at her shield and baton. Did she need to check them? If so, how did she? Did she dare to ask?

Well, not in front of the likes of Scout or Soldier. Or Hunter. That woman was a predator.

“Mission Objective.” Guard jumped at the woman’s voice. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to that. “Retrieve the enemy intelligence before they steal yours.”

Guard blinked. “That’s it?”

“Undoubtedly the BLUs will be protecting their intelligence,” said Spy. “As will we. Engineer, would you mind looking after the intelligence?”

Engineer shook his head. “’Course not.” He nodded towards Guard. “Mind if I take Guard with me?”

Guard gave him a startled look.

Spy shrugged. “Unless there were any other requests for her…?” The inquiry was met with several responses that indicated that there weren’t.

When everyone turned to look at Guard she realized they were expecting a response from her. “Y-yeah! I’m supposed to guard stuff so it makes sense.” She mentally hit herself over her head for how stupid sounding that had come out.

Spy nodded. “Good.”

“Mission begins in 5…4…3…2…1…Begin!”

Everyone burst into action, running out of the supply room. Most went in one direction, but Engineer went in the opposite. Guard made sure to follow him. They went up a flight of stairs, turned left a couple of times and entered a room where a red briefcase was displayed on a desk. “Um, I guess I keep BLUs out of here?”

“We both do,” said Engineer. “I’ll build a sentry. It’ll fire at any BLUs that come by. Keep an eye out until I finish up, will ya?”

Guard nodded. “Right.”

She turned her back to the door and looked both ways down the hall. No one there. Then again, there was enough space between the two bases that it would probably take at least half an hour for the BLUs to get here, but she couldn’t assume or she’d get caught off guard. And then she’d die. She shuddered. She didn’t want to die, even if the respawn was real. Dying was painful no matter how it happened.

“Hey, Guard.”

She straightened. “Yes?”

“You haven’t been a mercenary for very long, have you?”

Guard winced and glanced back. Engineer was working on a sentry. “No…” She considered telling him. Engineer seemed friendly enough. Given, he was a killer, but they were on the same team. She needed to trust someone or she would go crazy. “I…only became a mercenary after Ms. Pauling offered me this job.”

Engineer stopped working on his sentry and gave Guard a surprised look. “Are you serious?” Guard nodded. “Why would they hire someone with no experience?!”

Guard shrugged meekly. “I don’t know.”

Engineer paused. “Why did you accept?”

“This…actually seemed better than where I was before…” Guard turned back around. “At least I’m not alone…”

Engineer sighed. “Have you actually killed someone before?”

“Yes.” That was true as ashamed as she was to admit it. “But I had a good reason that time!”

“Got a reason this time?”

Guard thought a moment. “I don’t want to die so they have to?”

Engineer sighed. “It’ll have to do.”

Guard swallowed and kept examining the hallways and listening. She could hear gunshots outside along with some shouting. They were fighting a fake war though so that was supposed to be what she heard…

Someone was running towards them!

Scout rounded the corner, only he was wearing blue. “Huh?”

“Ha! Too easy!” He was running towards her with his bat raised. He was going to hit her! Guard ducked with her shield held over her head, which the bat slammed into. She retaliated by slamming her baton into his abdomen, which sent him flying into the opposite wall.

“Move!”

Guard instinctively obeyed Engineer’s shout just in time to avoid a barrage of bullets that ripped through Scout. Guard walked over when the bullets stopped. His body was a mess of blood and guts and bone fragments, but he looked exactly like the Scout on their side. Guard briefly noted the corpse wasn’t bothering her before it suddenly disappeared.

“He’ll be back in respawn now,” said Engineer.

Guard turned to him. “Why did he look just like our Scout?”

Engineer shrugged. “I’m not sure how they do that, but the classes look identical on both teams except for the colors they wear.” He patted the sentry he’d been upgrading. “These are designed to target the exact shade of blue the BLUs wear.”

Guard blinked. “So the other Guard looks just like me?”

Engineer nodded. “And the other Engineer looks just like me.”

“Huh.”

“And Guard.”

“Hm?”

Engineer smiled. “Good job. I’d say you’re gonna do just fine.”


	13. Sniper can't figure out why he keeps dying

Sniper could see a lot from his perch. Not everything, but it was enough. He fired. “Headshot.” He reloaded and looked for another target.

There was a sudden pain in his back before everything went black and he abruptly came to in the respawn room. Sniper blinked and activated the communicator (How Engineer had gotten it small enough to fit in an ear he had no idea.). “Did I just get killed?”

“If you suddenly woke up in the respawn, then yes.”

Sniper was already leaving and looking for a new nest.

“Happened to me too,” muttered Hunter. “I cannot believe my spleen got ruptured!”

Sniper decided that was enough and turned the communicator off as he climbed the ladder to another nest. It wasn’t perfect, but it gave him a good view.

Sniper spent the next couple of hours sniping at anyone while listening to what the rest of the team had to say. Some had more to say than others, mostly Scout.

And then Sniper got set on fire. It was the BLU Pyro. Sniper had never gotten more than a serious sunburn, and it wasn’t nearly as painful. For several minutes he lay in respawn and stared at the ceiling. That had been…the most horrible experience of his life. No doubts. He made a note to give the BLU Pyro as many headshots as possible.

Sniper found himself in the respawn room one more time that day for a reason he couldn’t figure out. It was incredibly annoying and a little embarrassing. Here he was, gone his whole career without any accidents, and now someone had managed to get one over on him three times in one day. He wasn’t even sure what two of those were.

“Victory!”

Sniper climbed down from the nest, glancing at the setting sun. What a day. He made his way to the kitchen.

For some reason there were papers on the table. Spy glanced at them and snorted. “They’re individual kill records.” He took his and sat down. The others all took theirs as well.

Turns out the mysterious respawns Sniper had experienced were the result of being backstabbed by the BLU Spy. “Damn spook.”

“Ghost?! Where?!”

Sniper gave Guard a confused look. “What?”

“I don’t think that’s what he’s talking about,” Engineer reassured her.

Guard blinked. “Oh…” She laughed nervously. “That makes sense.”

Engineer glanced at Sniper’s record. “I’m guessing Spy?” Sniper just nodded. Engineer nodded back sympathetically. “Got me once too from the look of things. The invisibility watch makes him tricky to keep track of.”

“But he smells,” muttered Guard.

Sniper gave her a look of disbelief as he wondered why she would think someone who wore thousand dollar suits would smell. The only thing out of the ordinary Sniper had smelled around Spy was his cigarettes.

Oh.

Sniper made a note to check for cigarette smoke from then on.

Dinner was sandwiches made by Heavy. It was simple and quickly made, but food was food, and everyone was hungry. There was some ribbing from others concerning what went on and how they died. A couple of them were ridiculous.

How Soldier managed to blow himself up with his own rocket, Sniper still didn’t understand, and he’d been watching when it had happened.

Soldier claimed he’d been trying to get a boost to his jump. It was stupid.

Sniper went straight to his camper after dinner, not seeing any reason to stick around. He leaned his forehead against the door for a couple of minutes before shucking most of his clothes off and tossing them in a bag reserved for laundry. He grabbed a beer and a blanket and climbed the ladder up to the roof.

Sniper spent some time watching the stars and sipping at his beer until he finally drifted off to sleep.


	14. These Two Are Already Teaming Up

Heavy thought his new job was going well. No one was asking questions about anyone else’s pasts, the coworkers were professionals that could more or less be counted on, all his needs were provided for, and the pay was good so his mother and sisters would not need to worry about working.

“It is good morning to fight!”

The ones already up started at the shout. A couple pulled out guns but relaxed when they saw who it was.

“Guten tag, herr Heavy,” greeted Medic.

Heavy nodded to Medic. “Good morning Doktor.” The two had worked together well yesterday. He was sure they would work well today as well.

Things did not go well.

The idea of capturing several key points sounded simple enough. However, BLU had gotten to the first point and claimed it. Taking the point would be simple enough. They just had to kill the BLUs stationed at the point and stay there for a few minutes until it registered their color and changed to match. The two BLUs were Demoman and Guard so it should be easy. Guard couldn’t even shoot.

Except it wasn’t.

Heavy had opened fire immediately, only for BLU Guard to yank BLU Demo behind her shield, which could apparently survive a barrage from Sasha. He heard a gunshot behind him. He turned around and saw Medic dead from a gunshot to the head.

Then he heard an explosion and woke up in the respawn with Medic. “What was that?”

“The BLU Sniper I believe,” said Medic. “I’m sure that Spy will get to him or he will move to avoid being found. Shall we move?”

“Da.”

So they moved to the control point again. They were just in time to see the BLU Demo blow up Soldier while the BLU Guard shielded them from their Sniper’s bullets. “No Sniper. Go!” Heavy rushed (Medic close behind) while firing Sasha. BLU Guard wasn’t quite quick enough to pull BLU Demo behind her riot shield given the scream from him.

As Blue Demo disappeared to respawn, BLU Guard narrowly dodged a bullet to the head, which instead hit her shoulder. “Help! I need backup!”

“Hey guys, what’d I miss?” shouted Scout from behind them.

“Oh, just getting ready to claim the control point,” said Medic.

Heavy laughed. Things were going much better this time! The laughter caused him to miss the meaty thud behind him.

Sniper’s voice crackled over the com. “Spy!”

And then pain erupted in Heavy’s back and he was back in the respawn. “What happen?”

“That wasn’t Scout!” Medic said some German expletives.

“BLU Spy was nearby?” Heavy huffed. “Bad luck.”

Medic nodded in agreement. “Perhaps we should try something different.”


	15. Hunting BLUs

Hunter was on the hunt.

Wow, that sounded much better when she used her real name. Hunter made a note to come up with something different to think when she was following someone’s trail. This was probably not a Scout’s. Pretty sure it wasn’t a Heavy.

Hunter rounded the corner and saw the BLU Pyro spurting fire around them. Hunter ducked back around the corner. She hadn’t taken out the Pyro yet, and she was likely to end up burnt even if she took them out quickly. She certainly didn’t want to get set on fire. She pulled out her gun, made sure her naginata was in an easy to grab position, and rounded the corner.

She fired at the Pyro’s hands to try and make it so they couldn’t use their flamethrower. One missed. The other hit. It didn’t affect the Pyro’s ability to wield his flamethrower. They spun towards Hunter, turned on the flamethrower, and ran towards her. Hunter cursed and threw a couple of kunai to slow them down. Both hit, but the Pyro didn’t seem to notice.

Hunter rolled her eyes. All right then. She rushed towards the Pyro, throwing kunai at vulnerable areas that were the most likely to bleed profusely. When she was close enough for the flame to lick at her body, she twirled her naginata, stuck it in the Pyro’s shoulder, and sliced their arm off. She grinned. “Try flaming now!” Then she stuck the naginata blade in the Pyro’s belly and jerked it upward. That killed them.

Hunter giggled as BLU Pyro’s body was whisked off to Respawn. It was always so much fun to win a fight! She winced as the burns she’d gotten started to hurt. Time to find Medic.

Medic was slightly easier to find than the others. He usually traveled with someone since he was supposed to be healing and because while he was a professional killer he wasn’t quite as good in a fight as the others.

He actually reminded Hunter of one of her aunts.

She found Medic and Heavy at the control point, trying to get close to it. “Oi. Medic. You can heal?”

“That depends. Can you take care of the two on the Control Point?” countered Medic.

Well, if Heavy was there…Hunter glanced at the Control Point. There was the BLU Soldier and the BLU Guard. Hunter groaned. “Guard.”

“Ja.”

“Guard…”

“…Ja.”

BLU Guard waved. Hunter honestly couldn’t tell if she was being polite or insulting. The ‘loser’ salute BLU Soldier gave them was definitely an insult. “BLU Guard kill me three times yesterday.”

“Ah.”

“I attack first. She defend. Very good defending.”

“That is the point of her job,” deadpanned Medic.

“I hunt other people. Now. Will hunt Guard later.” After she got the hang of Guard’s fighting style.

Medic shrugged. “Fair enough. Go kill the BLU Sniper, will you? He keeps shooting us when we try to get close.”

That she could do. The Snipers were a bit harder to track than the others, but she liked a challenge. As soon as Medic finished healing her, Hunter ran off for what looked like a good place to shoot. Even if the BLU Sniper wasn’t there, she might find his trail.

And she might get to kill someone else on the way there.


	16. Hunter cooks

“You failed!”

The RED Team groaned. The BLU team cheered and/or jeered at the RED team. Well, that had been awful. Demo took a long drink, deciding he needed to keep his buzz going. “So, what’s for dinner?” That got him some looks. “What? No use dwelling on failure!”

“Yes there is!” shouted Soldier. “We need to do an intensive workout to make up for it!”

“But I’m tired!” complained Scout.

“In the morning.”

“But then we have to fight,” pointed out Transporter.

Soldier paused. “We will do an intensive workout on the weekend!”

“’m gonna be drunk,” said Demo.

“You’re always drunk,” snapped Spy.

“Worry later, eat now,” interrupted Heavy. “Who turn to cook?”

“Hunter,” said Engineer.

“Chikushou!”

“Unless someone wants to trade with her,” he continued.

“I still need plastic gloves,” muttered Guard.

Hunter threw up her hands. “Fine! Fine! I think I saw fish in kitchen…” She walked off muttering under her breath.

“What do you think she’ll make?” asked Demo.

He got his answer an hour and a half later, although he wasn’t sure what it was. It was still pink meat on top of a…bar of rice. And just plain pink meat by itself. “What is it?”

“Nigiri sushi and sashimi,” said Hunter, like that explained everything.

Transporter popped one of the rice bars in her mouth. “It’s slices of raw fish on rice and plain slices of raw fish,” she explained.

That got everyone else but Soldier to stare at the food. Soldier was already eating it…with sticks. Weird.

“Do you have any idea how unsanitary that is?” questioned Medic.

“Hey, we have eaten fish like this for generations, and it has not killed us!”

“Uncooked meat is full of bacteria!” continued Medic.

“So are you!”

“Where did you even get fish in the middle of the desert?”

“The refrigerator!”

*Fwoom!*

Pyro giggled at the flaming table.

Well, the fish wasn’t raw anymore at least. Although Demo thought it looked even less edible now.

Transporter glared at Pyro and opened a portal under their feet, sending them who knows where.

Hunter growled. “You not like my food you make your own!” And then she stormed off.


	17. Why didn't Pyro mention this earlier?

Pyro skipped through the halls after Balloonicorn. They had suddenly found themselves outside and away from the pretty fire they had made. They were pretty sure they’d seen one of those circle things Transporter made.

They’d stared at the fire pit for a while until they got too hungry to ignore it and had decided to go to the kitchen for a snack. Maybe they could cook something…with fire!

The kitchen was already occupied by Engineer, who was studying some papers. “Hey Pyro.”

“Heyo!” Pyro went over to the fridge. It was huge and had a lot of food items in it. Pyro grabbed a bunch of veggies, chopped them up, tossed them in a pan, tossed in some oil, and set it on fire. “Huddah!”

Engineer stared for a moment. “You-Are you cooking?”

Pyro nodded. “Mm hm, mm hm.”

“I’ll have to put you on the list,” muttered Engineer. He turned back to his papers. He looked upset. Balloonicorn floated over and nuzzled him. Engineer jumped and spun around. “Uh, yeah, it’s…a nice unicorn.”

“Bahoohoo,” corrected Pyro as they dumped the veggies onto a plate. They lifted their mask enough to chew on a piece. “Wata?”

Engineer pointed. “Water’s in that cabinet.”

Pyro shook his head and pointed at the papers. “Wata?”

Engineer looked confused. “Uh…Just blueprints, some papers from my papa’s time.” He sighed. “Wondering if his team had the same problems as ours.”

Pyro tilted their head. “Hm?”

Engineer shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.” He gathered up the papers. “I’m just thinking too much. A little time is all we need. We’ve only just met.” He stood up and nodded to Pyro. “Don’t stay up too late. We all need our rest if we want to do better tomorrow.” Engineer walked off.

Pyro kept eating their veggies and gave one to Balloonicorn with a smile. Engineer seemed happier, and they just wanted everyone to be happy.


	18. Control

Spy had finally figured out how to set up a working strategy without an argument from Soldier: fool him into thinking the strategy was his idea. It wasn’t too difficult, and while no one else seemed fooled they didn’t seem to mind that Spy was coming up with most of the strategy.

Today, the match was ‘King of the Hill’. It was similar to the match yesterday except there was a single control point that they had to stay in control of for a certain amount of time. Fortunately, if the point was seized by the other team, the time they’d already managed to lay claim to it would still count towards the necessary total.

Right now, Engineer was constructing a dispenser while Scout impatiently bounced on his feet on the control point.

For some reason, the control points were claimed more quickly when Scout was on them. Spy was not sure why and was planning on asking Engineer when they had some free time.

The control point abruptly turned RED, and Scout immediately ran off to help Soldier, Pyro, Hunter, Demo, and Heavy defend the point. Medic was healing anyone who needed it. Spy was flitting about, stabbing BLUs in the back while keeping an eye out for the BLU Spy.

Guard had been assigned to make sure no one tried to sneak up on Sniper so everyone else had to keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.

Transporter was who knows where. She didn’t stay in one place for more than a few moments.

Engineer finished up the dispenser and started working on a sentry. Remembering that the dispenser provided ammo, Heavy moved next to it so that he wouldn’t need to worry about reloading.

That should do it. Barring any monumental screw ups (not out of the question with this team unfortunately) they should win today’s battle handily. Spy nodded to himself, pleased with how things were going.

He would control things from here on out.


	19. Doppelganger (Medic is not in this chapter)

Transporter ducked behind a building to avoid the BLU Soldier. She set up a couple of quick portals to escape through and closed the portals once she was safe.

King of the Hill sounded simple enough to her, but Transporter wasn’t going to be involved with claiming the point. She lacked the stamina and attack power. So instead she ran around, grabbing medical supplies so BLU couldn’t use them. RED didn’t really need them with the Dispenser and Medic in the same place, but Transporter would drop some off with bullets when she checked in on Guard and Sniper.

Except Sniper had moved again. Transporter let out an annoyed sound. He couldn’t let her know when he does that? Now she was going to have to run around until she found him!

Fortunately, Transporter was quickly learning the best sniping locations, and started for another one nearby. No one. She huffed and shot a pair of portals that catapulted her onto a nearby roof. She froze. Her mirror image also froze.

They could tell her that the other team were completely different individuals all they wanted, but this woman had the same scars, the same equipment. How could she be anyone but her? But how could she be in two places at once?

A bullet went through her double’s head just as Transporter felt something go through her stomach. She looked down towards her bleeding stomach, stumbled backwards, and found herself coming to in the respawn.

Transporter took a deep breath, grabbed a few more bullets, and left.

She could worry about the implications of having a double later.


	20. No, you're not zombies

“What do you mean the Respawn’s not gonna work today?!” shouted Scout.

“That’s not what I said,” deadpanned Engineer. He gestured towards the respawn. “It’s on standby mode. You’ll be brought back, just not immediately.”

“That is not a tactical decision!” shouted Soldier. “You need to fix it so we can keep killing the enemy!”

Engineer reminded himself that Soldier (and most of the rest of his team) didn’t understand how respawn worked. “Look, it’s not broken. It was deliberately designed with this mode for Arena fights!”

Spy narrowed his eyes. “What is that and why do you know what that is?”

“Arena mode is…” Engineer thought for a moment. “I guess it’s as close to a normal battlefield as you can get with the respawn. Once you die respawn will gather you up but wait to put you back together until after one of the teams has been taken out completely.”

“Now, that’s more like it!” shouted Soldier.

“And I remember it being mentioned in my contract so that no one would panic and think something was wrong with respawn,” continued Engineer. He shrugged. “Should be a short day today.”

Guard raised a hand. “Are we going to be ghosts?”

Engineer blinked, not really sure how to respond to that. Fortunately, Soldier decided to answer for him. “There will be no ghosts because we are going to tear the BLUs apart!”

“Will they be ghosts?” asked Guard.

“Yes! But we won’t be able to see them so I do not care!” proclaimed Soldier.

Guard did not look reassured.

“Does that mean we're gonna be zombies?” asked Scout.

Hunter grinned. “We already zombies!”

“No one is a zombie or is going to be a zombie,” said Engineer, trying to end the odd direction the conversation had taken.

Medic derailed this plans with a sadistic grin. “Barring any monumental accidents of course. In which case, I assure you, I will replace any body parts that can’t be found or repaired!”

Most of the mercs promptly gave Medic a wide berth, not that Engineer could blame them. Engineer groaned and decided to drop the subject for now. They’d be starting in a moment anyway.


	21. Sniper gets Payback

The BLU Sniper took out Medic in the first five minutes.

Sniper couldn’t fault him. He’d made the BLU Medic a priority target since the first match. The Medics kept the rest of the team alive. Given it wasn’t normally a problem if a teammate was taken out since they’d be back in a minute, but in this case…It meant they were in trouble. No Medic, no respawn, things weren’t looking good.

Didn’t mean Sniper was gonna just give up and die.

Sniper wanted to take out the opposing Medic and return the favor, but the BLUs were doing a good job of protecting their Medic.

So he took out the BLU Engineer instead. He nodded and got ready to move.

A sudden explosion had Sniper jerking instinctively towards the window in time to see Soldier go flying up. “I figured out the rocket jump!” He laughed triumphantly before suddenly colliding with the ground.

What. The. Bloody. Hell.

“Did Soldier really do that?” asked Hunter.

“Yup,” said Engineer.

“…Could someone please check and see if that idiot’s still alive?” asked Spy.

“Sure, I wanna see how he did that!” said Scout.

All right. Sniper was moving. He stood and saw a still somewhat shocked Transporter. Funny, he hadn’t even heard her.

Hadn’t…

Sniper rushed forward and stabbed his kukri through Transporter’s stomach. A moment later she turned into the BLU Spy who made a weak gurgling sound before Sniper kicked him off his kukri. “Got the Spy,” he reported

“Great! We can use Engineer’s dispenser now!”

Sniper ignored the debate on how they could use it before and the lack of sappers didn’t change that. He needed to move before any other BLUs showed up.


	22. Manga and Comics Aren't Quite the Same Thing

They lost the match.

Soldier decided they needed a lecture again. “Men!”

“And ladies,” interjected Hunter.

“And women!” Soldier added. “We seriously fucked that up!”

Hunter tilted her head. Wasn’t that a term for…Oh wait, no, that was a swear that time. Why did so many American swears have to do with fornicating?

“We barely made it past lunch!” continued Soldier.

“I missed lunch?!” complained Scout.

“We cannot afford to let the BLUs kick our asses again!”

“Perhaps if Medic had additional guards on him,” suggested Spy.

“Yes!” Soldier pointed at Guard. “You will be sticking by Medic at all times!"

Hunter ran Spy’s sentence through her head one more time. She wasn’t entirely sure that was what he meant.

“I can only heal one person at a time,” said Medic. He grinned. “Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t go through with your idea. You just have to make sure you don’t get hit when I’m not healing you.”

Spy nodded. “Now that we’ve decided that, I will need to start preparations on our dinner.”

Engineer looked up. “It’s 1:57.”

Spy raised an eyebrow. “You expect me to make something that requires no effort when I have enough time to actually make something decent?”

Well, he was wearing silk. He probably had high standards. Hunter nodded to herself and turned to go back to her room. Scout followed after her. “Hey, where you goin’?”

“My room. Going to read manga.”

“What’s manga?”

Hunter turned and gave Scout a shocked look. “Manga is manga. How do you not know what manga is?”

Scout shrugged. “It sounds like mango.”

“What is mango?”

“It’s a fruit, you know, to eat.”

Hunter snorted. “Manga is for reading, not eating.”

Scout rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time.”

Hunter grabbed Scout’s hand and dragged him along. “I will show you manga. Much easier than talking.”

“I like the sound of that.”

Oh, she seemed to have given Scout the wrong idea. Oh well, it would be fun flirting with him.

Hunter had managed to get a foldable futon and tatami mats into her room. She couldn’t really do anything to the bathroom, which was too bad because Western bathrooms were weird.

She grabbed the first manga she could reach and handed it to Scout. “Manga.”

Scout flipped through it, and his face lit up. “Oh! Comics!”

Hunter blinked. “Comics?”

“Yeah! Drawn kinda funny though.”

“They are not!”

Scout tilted the manga back and forth with squinted eyes. “And what are these squiggles? I can’t read them at all!”

“Kanji. It is very different from Western writing, very complicated,” explained Hunter. “I can translate,” she offered.

Scout shrugged. “Okay.”


	23. Demo Can Appreciate a Good Bomb

Demo grinned. “That is a beautiful bomb!”

“The BLUs are trying to blow us up with it,” deadpanned Spy.

“That doesn’t mean I can’t admire it. Do you know what it takes to get an explosive that big?”

“Lots of gunpowder?” suggested Hunter.

Demo nodded. “That’s a possibility, but a more stable mix for a massive bomb like that-”

“Not important,” cut off Heavy. “Can you break it?”

“Sure, just need a few minutes.”

Sniper turned and walked away. “I’ll find a nest.”

Scout grinned. “So we get to attack now, right?”

Spy frowned. “Don’t be foolish. They have a Pyro, a Soldier, a Heavy, a Demolitions man-”

“Just call me Demo!”

“A Guard, and a Medic, who will make it harder to kill them,” continued Spy.

Guard raised a hand. “Where are the other classes?”

A blue portal abruptly opened under her. Fortunately, Heavy grabbed her before she could fall through. Spy sighed. “Let’s go.” He turned invisible.

Demo decided to lay some sticky bombs rather than simply charging in and attacking. Not that he minded running in and attacking, but the sticky bombs would be more efficient. Unless they blew up someone on his team, but they’d be back in a few minutes, so it was no big deal.


	24. Time for Your Physicals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some brief nonsexual nudity in this chapter due to Hunter not caring if anyone sees her.

They were able to avoid having their base blown up. Medic was quite happy. Didn’t want to have to replace his medical equipment. And he could start on something he’d been wanting to do: Get the medical histories of his team mates!

Honestly, he should have gotten them before now, but he’d been expecting to have them delivered when he was transferred. Not that he wasn’t going to do his own medical examination, but it would have been nice to have something he could build on. He clapped his hands with a smile. “Right, who’s first?”

“First for what?” asked Scout.

“Why, your medical examination of course,” said Medic. “I need to be aware of the state of your body should I need to do any in depth medical procedures.”

Guard raised her hand. “You terrify me. I don’t really want to be left alone with you.”

“Good!” He grabbed her hand and dragged her behind him. “You can go first!”

“What?!”

“Best to get over your fear!”

It was a short walk to his infirmary. He still needed to do a bit of work, but it was fine for the moment. “Sit, sit.” He pulled out his stethoscope and other supplies. “You mentioned a skin condition on your hands? Any other conditions?”

Guard looked away from where she'd been staring at the doves in the rafters. “…My feet?”

“All right then.” Medic yanked her gloves off. A quick look determined the condition. He yanked her boots and socks off. Same condition. “How do you treat it?”

Guard blinked. “Lotion.”

“That won’t do. You should use petroleum jelly and special gloves and socks.” He made a note and pulled out a tongue depressor. “Open.”

Guard had very long canines. Not that Medic hadn’t already noticed that. They were prominently visible every time she opened her mouth. Throat looked okay though. He shined a light in her eyes. “You have anisocoria.”

“I have what?”

“Uneqal pupil sizes. Rather minor. Probably nothing to worry about.” Medic had minor anisocoria as well. It was more common than people thought. He shined the penlight in her ears. Looked good. Took her blood pressure. Normal. “I need you to take off your ballistics vest to see how you breathe.” She took it off, but kept it in her grip. Medic put the stethoscope on her chest. “Breathe in deeply.” She inhaled. “Exhale.” She let out the air. He moved the stethoscope. “Again.” In. Out. He moved the stethoscope to her back. “Again.” In. Out. He moved the stethoscope. "Again." In. Out. “Good.” He suddenly moved her shirt.

Guard yelped and flew off the examination table. “Why did you…?”

“You have some very bad scars on your left side. Likely improperly sutured.”

Guard paled. “I’m not talking about that.”

Medic shrugged. “You don’t have to. It’s long healed so there’s no danger to you, but I would like to see if it caused muscle damage.”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Hm…” She had performed well over the week. If there was muscle damage, it wasn’t impairing her performance. “All right. What about the one on your head?”

Guard was busily putting her ballistics vest on again. “It’s old. It’s fine.”

“It looks like it punctured your skull.”

“It’s fine,” repeated Guard. “You don’t need to look at it.” She was moving towards the door.

Medic shrugged. “Fine…”

And then Guard was out the door. Jumpy girl. Maybe he should give her some anti-anxiety medication. He glanced out the door and noticed Guard was still there, talking to Engineer. Heavy, Soldier, and Demo were there as well. He’d have to hunt the others down afterward. “Next.”

That turned out to be Soldier. “I am in peak health!”

Medic gave him a similar examination. “No medical conditions I should know about?”

“No!”

“Good.” Everything normal. “You’re good.”

Engineer was next. “You didn’t do anything to Guard did you?”

Medic waved off Engineer’s concern as he started taking his vitals. “No, just trying to get a look at some scars on her shoulder. It looks to have been improperly treated when it happened.”

Engineer frowned. “Is that a problem?”

“Probably not, but I am curious what happened. It’s an unusual pattern.” He grinned. “Fond of the little Fraulein?”

“I know she’s not as young as she looks, but she does not look old enough to be out of high school.” Engineer sighed. “I’m surprised she’s not having that effect on more of us.”

Medic shrugged. “We are professionals after all.”

Engineer nodded. “True.” Engineer removed his goggles so Medic could look at his eyes. “Just try to go easy on her. It looks like she had shell shock even before she got hired on.”

Medic nodded absentmindedly. He was sure she’d get over it eventually.

Heavy was next. In very good shape for a man of his size and age, minus the paunch. Medic made a note to see if Heavy would be willing to help with some of his experiments.

Next was Demo. Medic could smell the booze on him. He made a face. “Are you always drunk?”

“Nae, only mostly,” answered Demo.

The examination went well until Medic checked his throat. “Mein Gott!” He forced some mouthwash into Demo’s hands. “Will you do something about your breath?” Demo started drinking the mouthwash. Medic quickly took it away. “Not like that!”

Demo burped. At least his breath wasn’t as horrible now. The only other thing of note was that Demo had horrible depth perception. Not surprising in the least.

So now Medic had to go find the other mercenaries to get their vitals. Well, he had an idea as to where Sniper was…

As Medic has suspected Sniper was sitting outside his van, cleaning his gun. “Herr Sniper, I still need to get your baseline vitals.”

“I ain’t going to your lab,” deadpanned Sniper.

Medic grinned. “That’s fine. I have everything I need with me.” He pulled out the blood pressure cuff and stethoscope. “It’s not as though I need to cut you open…yet.”

Sniper groaned. “Fine. Make it quick. I got chores to do.”

Medic took several vitals, noting that the only thing unusual was that Sniper was slightly farsighted, which made a lot of sense really. “There, that wasn’t so difficult, was it?”

Sniper went back to his gun maintenance. Now, where would the others be? Medic might have to do some wandering around. He’d try the training hall next.

Hunter was there stabbing various training dummies. Medic walked down, making sure she could hear him. “Herr Hunter-”

Hunter spun, the point of her pole-halberd weapon just under his chin. She tilted her head. “Did not hear you.”

“I highly doubt that,” deadpanned Medic. “I need to perform a medical examination so I know your baseline in case you are ever seriously injured or ill.”

Hunter smirked. “Oh really?” She started peeling off her top.

Medic was unaffected and put on a blood pressure cuff. “Yes, respawn takes care of most things, but there are certain circumstances where it won’t work, such as an illness. I also understand there is a very slight chance of a malfunction although maintenance should prevent that.”

“Mm-hm.”

The whole examination was rather quick, and the only thing off was that Hunter had myopia, once again not surprising as he doubted she’d wear glasses if she could help it. Medic went over who was left in his head: Spy (That was going to be difficult), Scout (Might be able to bribe/threaten him), Pyro (Medic was actually a bit frightened by him[?]), and Transporter (She was going to be hard to catch.).

Medic left Hunter to her training and started going through the base. He found Pyro standing in front of some burning tires, which explained that smoke he’d noticed before. “Herr Pyro, I need to give you a medical exam.”

Pyro nodded. “O ee.”

Medic managed to get a blood pressure. He managed to listen to Pyro’s lungs and frowned. “You have damaged lungs.” Probably from the fires. “I suppose your gas mask will prevent most future damage. If you start to have problems breathing I will need to be informed."

“Ee.”

“Now, remove your helmet so I can get a look at your eyes and ears,” instructed Medic.

Pyro stared at him, breathing heavily. Medic waited. “Herr Pyro. Your mask.” Pyro breathed. Medic reached for Pyro’s mask. Pyro hefted their ax. Medic drew his hands back. “I’ll just trust your eyes and ears are in sufficient health.” Unprofessional yes, but Medic valued his own health, even with the respawn.

He started looking for the remaining members, eventually hearing a loud sound that he headed towards.

It turned out to be Scout hitting a baseball into the air. “Home run!”

“Herr Scout, I need to give you your medical examination.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

Surprisingly, Scout had low blood pressure. Then again, that was somewhat normal in athletes. “You are in good health.”

Scout puffed his chest out. “Of course!”

“Don’t get overconfident.” This just left Spy and Transporter. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Transporter or Spy.”

“Port sometimes does gymnastics on the base,” commented Scout.

It was something so Medic walked over to the area where they usually did battle with the BLUs. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

*FWOOP*

That sounded like Transporter’s portals. He walked towards the sound. Transporter suddenly went flying out of the wall of a building and into another building. “Herr Transporter!”

Transporter poked her head out of the building.

“I need to perform a physical.”

Transporter jumped down and walked over to Medic. “Do you need to draw blood?”

“Yes.” Not really, but if she was offering he wouldn’t say no. “But first blood pressure.” He stuck the cuff onto her arm. Normal. He put the stethoscope on her chest. “Breathe.” Moved the stethoscope. “Breathe.” He moved the stethoscope to her back and frowned. “What.” He felt Transporter’s spine. “Why is there metal covering your spine?”

“It’s an implant.”

“For what? To keep your spine from being damaged when performing your acrobatics?”

Transporter shrugged. “Maybe. It has something to do with the nanobots.”

Medic blinked. “Nanobots. What nanobots?”

“The ones that repair my body.”

“Ah.” Medic had noticed she was recovering from injuries during battles but had thought she was using the health packs or going through respawn. “That is interesting. Are there any in your bloodstream at the moment?”

Transporter thought a moment. “Probably.”

“Excellent.” Medic quickly finished the rest of the examination before tying a rubber tube around her bicep and taking out a syringe. “Now, this should only take a moment.” He stuck the needle in a vein and took several CCs before taking the needle out and capping it. “Feel free to return to your exercise.”

Transporter turned and shot out a portal on the ground in front of her and another on a wall. She jumped through the one in front of her and shot a new portal as she fell out the one in the wall.

Her way of getting around was quite confusing.

This left Spy. Medic didn’t think he’d actually be able to find Spy unless Spy wanted to be found. He’d just get the measurements next time they ran into each other.

He ran into Spy in his lab. “What are you doing in here?” he deadpanned.

Spy smirked. “You were obtaining the medical baselines of the team, correct? I thought you would be looking for me.”

“True,” conceded Medic as he looked around the lab to see if anything was out of place. Nothing obvious, but he’d give it a more thorough examination later. “Nothing invasive, simply blood pressure, breathing, anything you would expect at an annual physical.” He placed the cuff on Spy. His blood pressure was a bit high. He listened to Spy’s lungs and determined the cause. “Your blood pressure is a bit high, and your lungs don’t work as well as they should, likely due to your smoking. I recommend you stop.”

Spy chuckled. “Medic, considering my occupation, I highly doubt my smoking is what is going to kill me.”

“We have respawn. You won’t die of an injury while you have this job,” pointed out Medic. “However, it cannot heal diseases, including cancer. I doubt our employers would appreciate needing to replace you because your body turned against you.”

Spy smirked. “I know of your reputation. I don’t think I need to be concerned.”

Medic gave Spy a sadistic grin. “I’ll keep that in mind.” An unwitting guinea pig was always a good thing to have.


	25. Grocery Shopping

It was Saturday, so they had today and tomorrow off. “Anyone wanna go into town with me?” asked Engineer.

“Why would you wanna go into town?” asked Scout. “There’s nothing there.”

Engineer put his hands on his hips. “It’s a town, which means there is something there, stores and the like. We may have food provided, among other things, but that doesn’t mean we can’t buy things ourselves if we want to. Also, that’s where the bank where we withdraw money from our accounts is.”

“I do have some things I need to order,” said Spy. “However, I simply need to drop off a letter at the post office for that.”

“I need booze!” proclaimed Demo.

“Don’t get any of the locally made stuff,” said Medic. “The water’s full of toxins. It will make you stupider.”

“Right!” Demo paused and then frowned. “Wait…”

“Does town have library?” asked Heavy. Engineer nodded. “Heavy will go. Would like something to read.”

“Me too,” said Transporter.

Guard nodded in agreement.

“The town of Teufort does not have any of the supplies I use,” said Medic.

“I’m fine,” snapped Sniper.

Hunter smirked. “I have plans.”

No one wanted to bring Soldier and Pyro into town.

That left six people to fit in his truck. He could probably fit two people into the cab. “All right, Guard and Transporter can ride in the cab-”

“Do you know how expensive this suit is?” questioned Spy.

Transporter shrugged. “I’d prefer to stay in the back.”

Engineer huffed. “Fine, but you are not smoking in my truck.”

Guard ended up between Engineer and Spy. In the back, Heavy was leaning against the tailgate with Transporter (wearing normal shoes for once) and Demo across from him.

“So, what’s the sort a brew you lot prefer?” questioned Demo. “I prefer Scrumpy meself.”

“Heavy does not drink.”

“Why not?” questioned Demo, like he couldn’t believe this.

“Makes Heavy feel bad.”

“You lead a sad, sad life,” muttered Demo. “What ‘bout you lass?” he asked Transporter.

“I don’t drink either.”

Demo groaned. “Why the Hell not?”

“It’s dangerous.”

Demo tapped the back window of the cab. “Please tell me you know how to enjoy a drink.”

“Oui, I enjoy the occasional fine wine,” said Spy.

Engineer nodded. “A beer after work is nice.”

Guard didn’t say anything.

“See? They know what I’m talking about!” said Demo.

The odd debate about what to drink and when went on for another half hour until they got to town. Transporter hopped out the back and started walking like she knew exactly where she was going. Heavy apparently decided to try following her. Guard scrambled out of the truck so as not to be left behind.

Spy had disappeared at some point before that. Engineer didn’t know when or how. He’d just have to hope Spy wouldn’t leave everyone waiting for him.

Engineer went to the post office to drop off some letters of his own. He didn’t see Spy, so he was either doing something else before stopping there or staying out of sight.

Next was the grocery store. There were a few food items Engineer wanted for the next time he did the cooking. Also plastic gloves. Nothing local. Couldn’t trust the water.

Engineer went to the book store next and got a surprise. “I thought you were going to the library.”

“Workers refused to rent us books. Said last team kept destroying them,” explained Heavy. He pulled a book off the shelf and added it to the growing pile he was holding. “Is very good selection. Better than home. Should get bookcase.”

Engineer nodded and curiously looked around for Transporter and Guard.

Guard was looking incredulously at all the available titles, taking out a book, reading a little, and then putting it back, apparently deciding the book wasn’t for her.

Transporter was looking at cookbooks. Engineer fully approved since she was one of the mercs with no cooking skills.

He grabbed his usual magazines, paid for them, and took everything back to the truck.

Demo had filled most of the entire back of the truck with crates of alcohol. Engineer stared. “What in Sam hell did you do?!”

“What? I need enough to last me the week.”

Engineer really hoped that Demo wasn’t going to drink that much in a week. “I have to drive six people back to base! You won’t all fit in the cab!”

Demo blinked as if that hadn’t occurred to him. He stared at his alcohol for a moment. “Maybe I can have it delivered.”

“We are not allowed to give out the address of our base,” said Spy.

Engineer jumped and spun around. “Don’t do that! Bad enough I have to watch out for the BLU Spy…”

Spy shrugged. “You might as well get used to it.” He took a drag of his cigarette. “As I was saying, we are not allowed to give out the address of our base for security reasons. It is why we have post office boxes.”

“Everyone in Teufort knows where the bases are,” deadpanned Engineer. “You can actually see townsfolk eating lunch while watching us.”

Spy blinked, caught off guard for once. “Are you quite serious?”

“I’m a second generation mercenary, remember?”

Spy pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is completely ridiculous.”

“So, I can get my scrumpy delivered?” asked Demo.

Spy sighed. “I will ask the higher ups. For now, it would be best not to anger the ones signing our paychecks.”

“Then how am I supposed to get me scrumpy back?” asked Demo.

Spy turned on his heel. “I am calling the Bushman.”

“Who?”

“Pretty sure he means Sniper,” said Engineer. “It’ll take at least half an hour for him to get here.”

“Oohh…” Demo grinned. “I know how to pass the time.” Demo started singing. It turned out Demo couldn’t carry a tune.

Engineer winced and did his best to ignore him.


	26. Back in the RV...or Camping Van...or whatever it is

Once again Spy found himself in Sniper’s camper van. He was more than a little annoyed by this. He gave Demo a glare. Demo either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Spy rolled his eyes and focused on Heavy, who was reading one in a stack of books that he’d bought.

It was hard to believe that someone like Heavy had a PhD in Russian literature, but there you go.

Transporter…was reading a cookbook. Not what he was expecting. She also had a book on how to speak French, which he found incredibly amusing. “Planning on learning French?”

Transporter nodded.

“You do realize that as a Spy I know many different languages? I could simply switch to another one if I didn’t want you to know what I was saying.”

Transporter gave him a look. Spy smirked. She huffed and went back to her cookbook. Sniper muttered something about spooks. Spy took out his knife and started playing with it, ignoring the brief glare Heavy sent the knife.

“This better not become a regular thing,” said Sniper. “I don’t want to have to come pick you up just because you ran out of room in Engineer’s truck every week.”

“Did not know Demo would buy so much,” said Heavy. “Engineer promised to buy trailer on next trip.”

“Good!”

“Thank you for coming to pick us up,” said Transporter. Bit late for thanks, but Spy supposed it was better late than never. “I’m not very good at saying thanks.”

Were any of them? Spy certainly didn’t think so. He couldn’t remember the last time he thanked anyone for anything and actually meant it.

“Right, we’re back. Everyone out,” said Sniper.


	27. Cooking Time!

Transporter had never done this before. She recalled cooking with her mother a couple of times, but that was more along the lines of something Hunter would make. She actually wouldn’t mind learning to cook that sort of stuff for nostalgic reasons, but she wanted to start simple.

Chocolate cake and icing were simple, right?

So how do you start? Transporter stared at the complex list of instructions. She should probably make sure she had everything before she started since no one wanted to make the hour long round trip back into town.

Transporter had just determined they had everything for the cake and was starting on the batter ingredients when Guard came in. Guard blinked. “Transporter?”

Transporter straightened. “Hm?”

“Uh…I thought you couldn’t cook.”

“I’m practicing.”

“Oh, okay.” Guard started going through the cabinets.

“What are you doing?” asked Transporter.

“I have to get started on the pizza dough so it can rise,” explained Guard. She opened the fridge for a moment before apparently deciding that everything she needed was there and started putting ingredients and utensils on the counter. She took out some plastic gloves, took off the ones she usually wore, and washed her hands.

Transporter tried not to stare at Guard’s horribly scarred hands. Guard thankfully didn’t notice (or was used to it) and put on the plastic gloves before pausing. “Do you need the sifter?”

“Why would I need a sifter?”

“It gets rid of clumps in dry ingredients,” explained Guard. She dumped a lot of flour, sugar, and salt into a sifter in several breaks and went through it before handing it to Transporter. Transporter eyed it awkwardly before sighing and starting to measure out the dry ingredients. She glanced over at Guard, who was mixing up something else into the mix she had going on.

Transporter had just finished mixing in the liquid ingredients when she suddenly realized she was going to need softened butter for the icing instead of hard butter. Oops. “How do you soften butter?”

“Let it sit out.” Guard paused. “Uh, you could just leave the dry ingredients for now while the butter softens.”

Transporter made an annoyed sound and pulled out a couple of sticks of butter. She leaned against the counter and watched as Guard poured bottled water into a bowl and stuck it in the microwave. She took out an egg carton and some olive oil while she waited for it to heat up and grabbed…an even bigger bowl? “Why do you need so many bowls?”

“Pizza dough rises a lot when you leave it.” Guard took the water out, put in some olive oil and eggs, and started whisking it. “I wonder if I could make regular bread…”

Transporter shrugged.

Guard dug a well in the dry ingredients and poured some of the liquid mixture and started stirring it in. She slowly started mixing in the rest until she had a somewhat sticky dough. She then dumped a bunch of flour on the island, making sure to get plenty on her hands. She dumped the dough on the flour and started kneading it.

Eventually she put the dough in the extra large bowl. She then started gathering a bunch of cheese.

Transporter decided this was as good a time as any to get back to making her cake. The butter was still a little hard, but she still needed to finish the cake batter before she needed it. But first she had to melt the chocolate.

She put some baking chocolate in a pan and waited for it to melt.

A few minutes later, Transporter dumped a pan of burnt, half-melted chocolate into the sink. She had no idea how she’d managed to burn chocolate before it was finished melting. She looked in the cookbook. It didn’t really go into detail on how to melt the chocolate, just that it needed to be melted. Maybe it was somewhere else in the book.

And that was when Heavy walked in. “What is burning?” Guard pointed at the sink. Heavy peered in and raised an eyebrow. “Chocolate?”

“I was trying to make a cake,” muttered Transporter.

“Ah.” Heavy stared at the chocolate for another moment. “This I know how to do.”

Both women stared at him in surprise. “You do?” asked Guard.

“Da. Remember watching my mother.” Heavy walked over. “How much chocolate is needed?”

“A bar.”

Heavy took out a bar, studied it for a moment, broke it into four pieces, and dropped it in the pan. After a moment, he took out a spoon and used it to move the chocolate around as it melted. It took a little while, but the chocolate melted without burning this time. Heavy nodded and handed the pan to Transporter.

Transporter took it. “Thanks.” She spooned it into the batter. She’d have to remember how Heavy did that when she made the icing.

Heavy walked over to the rising pizza dough and Guard. “Bread?”

Guard shook her head. “It’s for pizza.” She gestured at a pile of grated cheese she’d made when Transporter hadn’t been looking. “I might try making bread since it doesn’t seem that different.”

Heavy nodded. “Would be good. Fresh bread better for sandviches.”

Guard just nodded awkwardly. “Um…What do you like on your pizza?”

“Heavy has not had pizza before.”

Guard winced. “I’m sorry! I didn’t-”

“Is fine.”

Transporter decided the batter was mixed enough and poured it into the cake pans she’d found.

“I’m…I’m not sure what to put on the pizzas. I thought we had pepperoni, but it turned out to be salami…”

“Ham.”

“That could work.”

The cake pans were in the oven. Transporter figured she should make the icing now.

“I was going to do one with peppers and onions and olives too…but onions make me cry…like most people…Potatoes can help, but I’m not sure what to do with the potato after that.”

“Baked potato?”

“I guess…?”

Transporter was mixing up the butter and milk and powdered sugar, and everything else besides the chocolate. Behind her she could heard Guard moving around and then chopping at something.

After a few minutes of silence, Transporter decided to try melting chocolate again. It seemed to be going much better this time.

Then Guard put a huge pot on the stove next to her. Transporter balked. Guard started dumping a bunch of tomato sauce into it. Then she sniffed the sauce and started pulling out a bunch of spice bottles. “What are you doing?”

“Mixing the pizza sauce.”

“Can’t you just use regular tomato sauce?”

Guard gave her a very confused look, as if that course of action didn’t make sense. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Because it’s quicker and easier.”

“But…This is better,” said Guard, obviously not understanding.

Transporter sighed. “Never mind.”

Guard kept sniffing the spices and tomato sauce, which struck Transporter as odd. Didn’t you usually taste that sort of stuff?

Then again, what did she know about cooking?

Guard took the pot off and left. Transporter kept melting the chocolate until it was liquid and poured it into the mixer. It looked okay so far. She took a small taste. It tasted fine to her. The cake needed some more time so Transporter turned to see how Guard was doing.

A wheel of dough was in the air. Transporter blinked. It fell, Guard caught it, and tossed it up again. Transporter stared as this was repeated several times before Guard put it on a pizza pan. There were three more pizza pans with pizzas on them. “That was fast.”

“I used to work at a pizza restaurant,” explained Guard. She started spooning the pizza sauce on and spreading it out. “I didn’t actually work in the kitchen unless it was really busy, but I picked up a couple of things.” She spread the cheese on the pizzas before putting ham on one and the vegetables on another. She then put all the pizzas in the oven.

The cake was done by then so Transporter pulled the pans out. She upended them, letting the cake slide out. She put one on top of the other.

“Icing is supposed to go between cakes,” pointed out Heavy.

Transporter removed the top cake and started icing the bottom cake. Hopefully, this cake would turn out all right despite the mistakes she’d made.


	28. Who Doesn't Like Pizza?

Scout was starving when the dinner bell rang so he ran straight for the dining room. Since he was the fastest he got there first. He grinned when he saw what was for dinner tonight. “Pizza!” Also…A lopsided cake. Well, it was cake. How do you mess up cake? “How come there’s no pepperoni?”

“I thought the salami was pepperoni,” explained Guard.

“That actually sounds pretty tasty,” commented Scout as he took a piece from each type of pizza. He started stuffing a whole piece in his mouth. Guard, Heavy, and Transporter looked rather disgusted.

That was when Hunter came in. “So that is what pizza looks like.”

“Ish goo!” said Scout.

Hunter studied it for a moment before grabbing a piece of veggie pizza. She took a small bite. Her face lit up and took a bigger bite of the pizza slice as the other mercs filed in.

“Why does only one pizza have meat toppings?!” demanded Soldier.

Guard winced. “I forgot to check for toppings earlier…”

“Oh, leave her alone,” said Engineer as he grabbed a couple of pieces of his own. “We’ll pick up some pepperoni and sausage on the next trip to town.”

“We need ribs!” insisted Soldier.

“You can’t put ribs on pizza.”

“You can put anything on a pizza.”

“You can’t put peanuts on it,” Guard interjected. “Unless it’s a dessert pizza.”

Scout swallowed. “You should make a dessert pizza.” He had no idea what that would entail, but it sounded delicious.

“Guard, why aren’t you eating the pizzas?” asked Spy.

And that was the first time that Scout noticed Guard was eating a baked potato and a sandwich instead of pizza. Guard smiled sheepishly. “I don’t like pizza.”

Everyone gave her a look of disbelief, including Pyro and Soldier. “You don’t like pizza,” deadpanned Spy.

“No.”

“And yet it is the only thing you know how to cook,” he continued.

Guard nodded, the awkward smile still on her face.

God, Scout worked with weird people.


	29. Thoughts in the Night

Heavy was trying to read but kept getting distracted. It wasn’t actually due to the rest of RED as the others who would be distracting were elsewhere in the base. The only other one is the rec room with him was Spy. It was his thoughts that were distracting him.

This situation…was actually even stranger than he had thought it would be. He’d assumed that the ‘You can’t die’ clause had been either a lie or a sign of very good medical care. The respawn system wasn’t something he’d thought could be possible. He supposed it was good that they wouldn’t die, but…

The things he saw when being brought back…Made him want to avoid respawn as much as possible. Was everyone seeing those images or just him? He didn’t think any of the other REDs would want to talk about something like that just yet.

Actually, the rest of the REDs were distracting him as well. They were a varied bunch, and he wasn’t sure what to make of them.

Medic was obviously insane, but kept the others alive in battle. Although, Heavy supposed that might simply be because it was his job. He seemed to enjoy hurting others just as much as fixing them. Actually, now that Heavy thought about it that was actually quite terrifying. Medic could hurt you as much as he wanted, fix you, and then hurt you again. It would be better to stay on his good side.

Transporter was…quiet. She didn’t say much during matches, and the few conversations he’d had with her had been short and to the point, giving away little about herself besides the fact that she didn’t know how to cook but was probably sane. He wasn’t even sure where she was from, but that was unimportant. He figured she was someone he could get along with, and that was the important part for now.

Guard…Honestly, she reminded Heavy of the children from the gulag. He hoped whatever had caused that behavior was recent because he could not see her surviving for very long the way she was now.

Engineer was friendly and more or less sane, but easily willing to kill in the circumstances. He was also likely the most intelligent man on the base, except for maybe Medic, but they specialized in different sciences so it was hard to compare the two of them. He seemed to be trying to keep the peace between the various teammates, which Heavy could appreciate.

Demoman…was drunk. A lot. And worked with explosives. It made Heavy nervous enough to try and avoid him, but there hadn’t been any explosions in their off time so he supposed it might not be too dangerous to be around him outside of battles.

Soldier was completely insane, rather stupid, and xenophobic. Heavy had to lie about being American to keep a fight from breaking out. It hadn’t even been a convincing lie, but Soldier had bought it. Heavy doubted he’d ever be able to take him seriously.

Scout was arrogant, talked too much, and had a really hard to understand accent. He was very fast and could keep it up for an extended amount of time though, which Heavy could admit was a very useful ability. Didn’t make Scout any less annoying.

Hunter was a sadist, not quite to the extent of Medic but still a sadist. She seemed happy most of the time. She was good at finding people, which Heavy understood was useful in and out of battle, but it made him nervous.

Sniper was even more of a loner than Transporter. Heavy had run into him on the battlefield once, and neither had said anything to the other. Sniper didn’t really spend much time in the base outside of meals. He might get along with Transporter? Or they just realized neither liked to talk and took advantage of that.

Pyro terrified Heavy. The less he saw of…that thing the better.

Spy purposefully avoided letting anything about him slip, which was only natural. He went off on his own during battle, not telling anyone what he was doing, only appearing when he needed healing from Medic. He was on no one’s side but his own, and likely used cowardly tactics if the BLU Spy was anything to go by. Heavy did not like or trust him at all.

And the BLU Team…Heavy knew it shouldn’t be possible for them to look exactly like their counterparts. Maybe one or two, but how many black, one-eyed, alcoholic, Scottish demolition experts could there be in the world? He could not come up with any sort of rational explanation for the phenomenon, and that worried him more than he wanted to admit.

Maybe this had been a mistake, but Heavy had signed a contract, and it would not be safe to try and back out of it. If it had just been him he may have been willing to try, but he could not risk the safety of his family.

Heavy closed the book. He’d been on the same page for almost 10 minutes. It was clear he would not be able to read any more tonight. He stood. “I will go now.”

Spy nodded. “Pleasant dreams.”

Heavy could only hope.


	30. Not on the Weekend Soldier

It was 6 AM in the morning and it was time for everyone to wake up! They weren’t waking up though so Soldier decided to remind them. Honestly, this was the second day in a row!

“Rise and shine Maggots!” Soldier pounded on the door next to his before moving to the ones across. “The sun is up and it is time for us to get up as well!”

As he moved to the next door, the one just past it opened to reveal Guard dressed appropriately in her uniform. “Soldier, it’s Sunday.”

“That is no excuse not to get up and moving! We are at war! There are no breaks in war!”

Guard blinked. “Uh…Aren’t all the fights scheduled?”

“Yes! Because it is an organized war!”

Guard frowned. “I don’t-”

“Damn it Soldier, it’s Sunday!” shouted Scout.

Soldier turned to see Scout and Hunter in their pajamas and Pyro…wearing pajamas over their uniform. Well, they all had their weapons so that was good at least. “Yes it is!”

“I was gonna sleep in!”

“Son, you do not sleep in when you are at war! You get up and fight your enemies to the death! Or dig trenches!” He heard a door close and turned just in time to see that Guard had retreated into her room while a very grumpy Heavy opened the door Soldier had been standing in front of. “Private! You will get out of there or I will break that door down!”

“Soldier,” interrupted Heavy. “You wake up entire team when there is no fight. Again. Without good reason.”

By this point Engineer, Medic, and Transporter had exited their rooms. Looks like Demo would need to be dragged out again. “I have a perfectly good reason to wake you all up! We cannot afford to become lax in our duties or we risk the enemy destroying us!”

Engineer wandered off muttering about coffee and breakfast. Good, they needed fuel for their busy day! Soldier would have to lecture him about wearing the proper uniform though. Soldier turned to pound on Demo’s door.

*KaBoom!*

And for some reason Demo had stuck a sticky bomb on the other side of the door. The explosion sent Soldier across the hallway, through Guard’s door, and into her wall. He did succeed in waking Demo up though.

“Nessie ye bastard!”

“My door…”

“I’ll cut yer tongue…out…” Demo looked around and lowered his scrumpy. “Where am I?”

“New Mexico,” deadpanned Spy, who had appeared suddenly in his suit.

“Oh, right…”

This whole time Soldier had been trying to climb to his feet. Guard sighed, walked over, and helped him stand up. “I do not need your help!” Guard stepped away, letting him fall back to the floor. “…I still do not need help!”

“Why did Demo have bomb on his door?” asked Heavy.

Demo shrugged. “I do not know.”

Scout whispered something to Hunter. The two grinned and ran off. The rest of the mercs started to wander down towards the mess hall. Guard’s eyes widened. “Wait! Medic! Aren’t you gonna heal him?!”

Medic snorted. “Respawn will fix him in a few minutes.”

“But he’ll bleed out in my room!”

“Fortunately, we have plenty of bleach.”

The last thing Soldier heard before disappearing to respawn was Guard’s distressed complaint about cleaning up blood.


	31. Spy Doesn't Like Pancakes

Engineer was making pancakes and bacon and eggs.

While Spy appreciated that Engineer had a surprisingly wide range of cooking skills, he couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose at the thought of having meat and eggs for breakfast.

Spy was perfectly aware that some protein in the morning was good for you and that this was a perfectly normal breakfast for most Westerners. He still decided he’d rather have toast and jam and slipped two pieces of bread into the oven. Engineer gave him a look. “I prefer a lighter breakfast,” Spy explained.

Engineer sighed. “Jam’s in that cabinet,” he said, pointing at a particular cabinet.

Spy opened it and noticed that they had blueberry and strawberry jam…He had no idea if that had been on purpose or not. He went for the strawberry. It seemed like going for the blueberry would result Soldier accusing him of being the enemy Spy.

Spy had some time before his toast was ready so he studied the rest of his team.

Heavy was eating at least twice as much as the others.

Demo had managed to fall asleep while eating his breakfast.

Scout was eating his food almost as fast as he was talking.

Hunter was sadly staring at her pancakes. Spy was pretty sure Japanese breakfasts consisted of rice and fish or something similar. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who didn’t care for Engineer’s breakfast.

Pyro…was playing with their food. Literally. They were treating the pancake and bacon like they were dolls. Spy kept watching for a moment before deciding he wasn’t going to see what was under that mask.

Sniper…was actually present. He hadn’t shown up for breakfast the previous week. Given that he had all his weapons on him, Spy assumed he’d been investigating the explosion and had decided to stay for the free food. Transporter was sitting next to him. Neither was saying anything. They were just concentrating on eating their food.

Medic was going on about nutrition and whole wheat pancakes and how unhealthy fried eggs are while gesturing with a forkful of pancake.

Guard was chewing slowly on a single pancake. Just a pancake. No bacon or eggs.

Pyro had less food somehow.

Soldier suddenly burst in. “I am back from the respawn!”

“What were you doing there?” slurred Demo.

…How was Demo already that drunk? Spy took the toast out of the oven and started to spread the jam on it.

“What sort of breakfast is this?” demanded Soldier.

“A good one!” said Scout. “Engie’s a real good cook!”

Hunter finally took a bite of her pancakes. “I miss fish…”

“Exactly! This meal needs more meat!” declared Soldier. “Where are the ribs?”

“Ribs are not a breakfast food,” said Medic.

“Nonsense! You can eat ribs for every meal!” argued Soldier.

Medic hummed. “Technically true, but it’s not healthy.”

Soldier snorted. “What would you know about that?”

This got him looks of disbelief from everyone. Medic looked somewhere between insulted and furious. Soldier marched over to the stove and promptly grabbed all the bacon. “Close enough.”

Engineer sighed at the loss of the bacon.

Soldier took the bacon back to the table. “Men!” Transporter cleared her throat. “And women! We need to come up with a plan for today!”

“We have the day off,” said Spy. “You don’t need a plan.”

“Nonsense! Now is the best time for the enemy to attack us! When we least expect it!”

Spy rolled his eyes. Hadn’t Soldier read the contract? The only ones allowed to attack in the off hours were the Spies. So, yes, they had to look out for the BLU Spy, but that was it.

Personally, Spy didn’t feel like sneaking around today.

“We can run the tacky dog maneuver if the BLU Demoman leads the charge!”

“Did he make that up?” asked Engineer.

Spy nodded. “I suspect he’s going to continue for the rest of the meal.”

Engineer put a pancake on a small stack. “Think I’ll be taking this in my workshop.”

Spy nodded. “An excellent choice.”


	32. Bloody Hands

Guard needed to clean up the blood in her room.

Pyro had helpfully pointed her in the direction of a supply closet full of cleaning supplies and a cart. She thought for a moment before grabbing bleach, a bucket filled with warm, soapy water, a scrub brush, and a mop. Then she looked around and found a pair of yellow, rubber gloves. She slipped off her leather gloves (Medic had put in an order for a pair of special gloves that hadn’t arrived yet.) and put them on. She hoped they kept the bleach and soap off her hands.

When she got to her room, Engineer was already there patching up Demo’s door, a couple of doors leaning against the wall. “You made those fast,” commented Guard.

Engineer chuckled from where he was patching up the holes around the doorframe. “We actually have a room full of repair supplies for when someone breaks something.”

Guard blushed. “Oh. That makes more sense…” She ducked into her room and stared at the bloodstain Soldier had left behind. She hated cleaning fumes. She’d try using just the soap and water first.

The blood wasn’t completely dry yet so she was able to get a good deal of the blood off with the scrub brush, however there was still a noticeable stain. She sighed and mopped up the pink suds. She was going to have to use the bleach.

She made a quick trip to dump the water for clean water that she poured a significant amount of bleach into, wrinkling her nose at the smell. She hoped the smell didn’t linger.

She went to work on the dried blood again. The bleach was working despite the smell. Maybe this would actually work and she’d be able to go about her day.

And then her hands started hurting. Guard groaned. Not again. This always happened when she tried to clean. Maybe if she hurried she’d be able to finish before it got really bad.

Unfortunately, the blood was as stubborn as Soldier. Guard had to spend long enough cleaning that her hands felt like they were on fire. The stains were finally gone. The room stunk of bleach. She needed to try and mop it up with clean water. Just water. No soap. She mopped up pink suds one more time.

“You’re bleeding.”

Guard blinked at Engineer before looking at the gloves. Blood was leaking out from them. “Shit.” She pulled them off and confirmed that the scars on her hands had cracked open again. Blood dropped into the water bucket, swirling before dissipating into pink.

And then water was suddenly being poured on her hands. “You should see Medic about that.”

Guard inhaled sharply. “No! I…It’ll stop! I just need some bandages!”

Engineer gave her a look. “Not with that many.”

Guard shook her head. “He’s dangerous!”

“So’re you,” said Engineer. “You’ll be fine.”

No, Medic was seriously dangerous because he enjoyed what he did and enjoyed hurting people. “I can’t! I can barely feel my hands!”

Engineer paused. “Good point. Wait here.” Engineer walked away.

Guard stood there awkwardly. Her blood kept dripping. The water still stank.

Engineer reappeared with a white towel that he wrapped around Guard’s hands. “There.”

Guard nodded. “Great, thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Now, let’s get to the infirmary.”

Guard’s eyes widened. “But I just-”

“So I’ll go with you,” said Engineer. “You won’t have to worry then.”

Guard blinked and stared at him. “But you have to do these repairs…”

Engineer shrugged. “The medigun will fix you up in no time. It’ll only be a few minutes. I can still finish in plenty of time.”

Guard stared at him. Why was he being so nice to her? She couldn’t understand it. “…Okay.”


	33. Weekends are Boring in Pyroland

Today was not as fun as the other days. Pyro’s Rainblower was locked up in a cabinet that no one would open. So Pyro tried to force it open with the Magical Lollipop of Happy.

It failed. That was a strong cabinet.

They decided to amuse themselves with their pretty lighter while gathering up anything that looked like it would make pretty rainbows.

For some reason there were lots of pieces of wood laying around.

Pyro dumped some happy juice on the pile of wood, put the lighter to it, and watched the rainbows and bubbles drift upwards.

It was a shame they couldn’t use the Rainblower for the past couple of days, but they could make do.

Really, it had been great besides that. These guys were so nice! They didn’t make a big deal about rainbows. Some of them even made pretty rainbows too!

And there weren’t any police! Police always spoiled their fun. They tried making the police happy too, but they didn’t like rainbows for some reason that Pyro could not figure out.

Pyro nodded happily to Balloonicorn. They thought they were gonna like it here!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's hard to write from Pyro's point of view.


	34. Medic and Engineer have a Discussion about Cybernetics

Guard darted out of the infirmary doors as soon as Medic turned off his mounted medibeam. Medic shrugged. He was starting to expect that from her.

Engineer tossed the bloody towel into a nearby trash can. “Well, back to work.”

Medic grabbed Engineer’s shoulder. “Actually, there was something I wanted to ask you about.”

“Hm?”

Medic walked over to a microscope. “Do you think you could replicate this?”

Engineer shrugged. “Yeah. You need another microscope?”

Medic shook his head. “No, not that. Can you replicate what’s on the slide?”

Engineer raised an eyebrow and looked through the microscope. He blinked before his mouth fell open in shock. “This! This is the smallest machine I’ve ever seen!” He turned to Medic. “Where'd you get this?”

“Transporter’s blood. They function as reparative agents. They allow most injuries to heal within a few minutes,” explained Medic. “Incredible, is it not?”

Engineer was looking through the microscope again. “I’ve never seen anything like it. The technology that must have gone into making this…” Engineer sighed. “I can't replicate this.”

Medic frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. No human could make this. Do you know how small the tools would have to be?”

“Transporter indicated they are manufactured by an implant on her spine,” admitted Medic.

Engineer nodded. “That makes more sense. Although that piece of technology is probably just as high tech. It has to get the materials, maintain a blueprint, probably keeps track of when it actually needs to make the…”

“Nanobots,” supplied Medic.

“Nano…huh, probably as big as a nanometer.” Engineer finally looked away from the microscope. “Anyway, it makes sense if she has an implant that produces these nanobots. It’s probably completely automated, which would require a very advanced computer.”

“Can you replicate that?” asked Medic.

Engineer shook his head. “Definitely not.”

Medic’s face fell. “Why not?”

“Well, for starter’s I have no idea what it looks like. I’d have to study it for at least a few minutes to even have some sort of idea how it works, and to do that it would have to be detached from Transporter, and that would probably kill her, which would send her through respawn, which would cause the device to disappear,” finished Engineer.

Medic frowned. “Ah. That would make it difficult.”

“Although it might be possible during Arena mode,” continued Engineer. “If she died before me and I was able to get to her spine before the match finished.”

Medic grinned. “And then you could replicate the device?”

Engineer grimaced. “Uh, small problem. I doubt I’ll be able to build a computer as compact and complex as the one in her implant. I’m not sure I can even construct the tools that would produce the nanobots.”

The grin was wiped off of Medic's face. “What? But you’re supposed to be the best engineer in the world!”

Engineer shrugged. “I still have my limits. Honestly, if it were a few decades in the future, it might be possible for me to replicate Transporter’s implant, but with what I have available to me at the present it’s just not possible.”

“Scheiße.”

“I might be able to make something similar though,” said Engineer. “It’d would be a lot bulkier though. Probably wouldn’t work as well…”

Medic shrugged. “It will have to do. If I happen to see her spine, I will bring it over to you.”

Engineer smiled and nodded. “Sounds good to me.”


	35. Comics Vs Manga

“Why does Flash not punch Captain Cold in his face? Or take his gun away?” asked Hunter.

Scout shrugged. “I have no idea. I guess that would be too easy and the comic wouldn’t last two pages.” Honestly, it had never occurred to him. He just liked seeing Flash run circles around enemies and insult them. “What about Batman and Robin? They got no powers.”

Hunter shrugged. “Okay, but the art in your comics are so weird."

Scout snorted. “You’re one to talk. The people in your mango books-”

“Manga.”

“-look like they’re made of rubber and have huge eyes!”

Hunter pouted. “I like the art. Makes it easier to read their feelings.”

“…Okay, they’re kind of blank-faced,” admitted Scout. “More realistic though.”

Hunter nodded. “Maybe, but reality can be…boring.”

Scout gave her a look of disbelief. “Seriously?”

Hunter smirked. “Not for me, but normal people get bored.”

“Eh, makes sense,” admitted Scout. He held up two different comics. “So, Batman and Robin or Superman?”

“I think that enough comics for now,” said Hunter.

“Okay, okay, no comics.” What else could they do? “Wanna make out?”

Hunter shrugged. “Okay.”

Sweet! Scout immediately slammed their lips together and slipped some tongue in.

What the…

They quickly separated. “That felt freaky,” complained Scout.

Hunter nodded in agreement. “Like kissing my brother.”

“Really? I don’t have a sister…” Scout tried to imagine kissing one of his brothers as a substitute…and it was even grosser. “Yeah, I dunno if it was like that, but it was gross.”

“It is weird. I sleep with anyone,” said Hunter.

“I ain’t picky either, and you’ve got glasses!”

“Huh?”

“I like girls with glasses,” admitted Scout. “Dunno why. I just do.”

Hunter smirked. “Do not underestimate the glasses.” She pushed them up with one of her fancy throwing knives.

“Where’d you pull that from?” asked Scout. Hunter just smirked before shoving the knife unto her shirt. Scout had no idea how she could do that without stabbing herself. “Cool trick.”

“Kunoichi have to know these things.”

Scout screwed up his face. “A what?”

“Female shinobi.” Scout still had no idea what that was, and it must have shown. She sighed. “Ninja.”

“Oh, why didn’t you say so?”

“Ninja is not correct term!” said Hunter. “Has Chinese root, not Japanese!”

“Okay, okay, sheesh!” Must be like when people assume he’s from Brooklyn. “Not a ninja. I get it.”

Hunter nodded. “Good.” And then. “Friends but no kissing?”

Scout shrugged. “Okay. What now?”

Hunter thought a moment. “Want to look at hentai?”

“Hen what?”

“Uh…What was English…Porn!”

“Now you’re speaking my language!”

Hunter gave him a confused look. “I was already speaking English.”

“It’s a figure of speech. Your stash or mine?”

“Eh, might as well stay in your room.”


	36. Calling Home

Engineer finally finished patching up the walls and doors and stood with a stretch.

Not quite what he thought he’d signed up for, but you gotta take the bad with the good.

Engineer checked the time on a nearby clock. There were still a couple of hours before dinner. He nodded and walked outside.

For some reason there was only one phone that could be used to call outside the bases or their employers, and for some reason it was outside between the two bases. Engineer could understand having it between the two bases since they had to share, but he just couldn’t understand why they didn’t have two separate phones for each team in the comfort of their own bases.

The Mann brothers very rarely made sense though so Engineer decided not to dwell on it too much.

No one else was using the phone, thankfully, so Engineer picked it up, punched in a number that he knew by heart, and waited.

“Hello, Conagher household.”

Engineer smiled. “Hey Kate.”

“Dell! I was starting to get worried…”

“Yeah, sorry. Had to take care of some chores yesterday, and today I had to patch up some damage from bombs.”

“Bombs.”

“Yeah, the demolition expert has a drinking problem.”

“Oh dear Lord, I still can’t believe that your family does this sort of thing for a living.”

“Well, at least the respawn works,” joked Engineer.

“Did you figure out how that works?”

“Nah, there aren’t any blueprints, and it looks like part of the machine is kept in a separate location."

Kate sighed over the phone. “I’d feel better about all this if I knew how it worked.”

“Me too,” admitted Engineer. “It certainly looks like my grandpa’s work, but he’s not really around to ask.”

“Guess you’re not gonna make up with your father and ask him.”

Engineer frowned. “Not after what he did.”

“…How are you holding up?”

“Pretty well. Still getting used to fighting every day. Well, almost every day. Think I ended up with the role of peacekeeper in the off hours. Haven’t had as much time to do designs as I’d hoped, but I’m hoping that’ll change as everyone gets used to the situation. What about you and Irene?”

“Irene misses her daddy. I miss you too,” said Kate. “It’s just so strange not having you around.”

“I’ve already put in a request to leave the base for the weekend. It’ll go through eventually.”

“I hope so. No one’s talking yet so that’s good. Don’t know how long that’s gonna last.”

“One problem at a time,” commented Dell. “It’s not like they can say I just left if I come back on a regular basis.”

Kate sighed. “I hope so…Why don’t you tell me about your coworkers, like the drunk bomb expert.”

“Demo. He’s from Scotland, black, and missing an eye.”

“He blew out his eye?”

Engineer shrugged even though Kate couldn't see. “Didn’t ask. I guess.”

“Has he blown anyone else up yet?”

“It sounds like there was an accident with Medic and Scout, something about placing bombs in the wrong hallway.”

“Oh good, you do have a doctor on base. I was worried about what would happen if you got sick or something.”

“Actually…Medic’s completely insane…and German…He might have been a Nazi.”

“Your doctor is a Nazi?!”

Engineer pulled the phone away with a wince before putting it back. “I said ‘might’. He has dark hair, and I haven’t seen any swastikas. It’s not like all Germans were Nazis.”

“If he starts talking about experiments-”

“I’ll avoid him like Hell,” promised Engineer. “Don’t worry.”

“How did he even get the job?”

“Well, you got people from all over the world, and the Mann brothers don’t particularly care about the sort of people they hire as long as they’re good at what they do.”

Kate sighed. “That makes more sense than it should.”

“Yeah, actually we got a bunch of oddballs here. Some are pretty normal, but then you got someone like the Pyro who’s always trying to set something on fire and wears a fireproof suit all the time. I’m still not sure if they’re a man or a woman…”

“Please don’t ever bring either of them home to visit,” deadpanned Kate.

“Wasn’t planning on it. They’re not all bad. Sniper mostly keeps to himself, but he’s generally polite when he interacts with the rest of the team. Transporter…is pretty quiet. Actually, now that I think about it the only time I saw her outside of battle and meals was the shopping trip into town.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” agreed Kate. “You mentioned something about a…Scout? Something like that?”

“Yeah, fast little jackrabbit.” Engineer had no idea how Scout was able to run like that all day without fainting from exhaustion. “Real young, think he said he was 22. Thinks real highly of himself though.”

“Most young men do,” muttered Kate.

“Yeah, I’m hoping he grows out of it. He gets along real well with Hunter. She's a Japanese woman. Real open about…everything. Strong accent. Pretty violent, but that’s not really too strange here. Dresses a bit strange, and I have no idea what that saber spear thing she uses is.”

“Saber spear?”

“That’s the best way I can think of to describe it. I’ll see if I can send you a sketch. Who should…Ah, there’s one last offense class left: Soldier. He’s…I’m not sure what’s wrong with him. He’s definitely insane, and doesn’t seem to understand logic. He’s trying to figure out how to get around by blasting himself off the ground with his rockets.”

“That seems dangerous.”

“Surprisingly, he can do this a couple of times before he needs medical attention.” Engineer had given up trying to figure out how this was possible. “It’s not too difficult to do that. We have Medic, and he leaves medicine lying around. Transporter will deliver medicine as well if you ask her too.” The real trick was surviving attacks long enough to get the care.

“Well, that’s good at least,” said Kate. “Have you gotten terribly hurt?”

“I did have to go through respawn,” admitted Engineer, leaving out how many times it had happened. “But I stay out of direct fights most of the time and set up sentries and the like to help out. Usually Pyro or Guard will be keeping an eye out for the BLU Spy.”

“Guard?”

“Yeah, not sure how young she is. Looks 12, but she has to be at least as old as Scout. Shy little thing…Pretty good fighter though.” He frowned. “Can’t help but wonder how someone like her ended up here.”

“Poor thing…She can’t get out of it?”

“The only way to get out of the contract is death,” said Engineer. “She’ll just have to wait until the higher ups decide it’s time to replace us.” And that could take decades.

“And you have a Spy?”

“Yeah, sneaky fella. Guard’s pretty much the only one who can reliably notice him. Pretty sure he’s French…But who knows. I don’t even know what he looks like under that mask he always wears. Guess that sort of thing comes with being a Spy.”

“Why would he be going after you?”

“Oh, he has a way to mess up my machines.” And he tended to backstab Engineer a lot. “I can fix ‘em up as long as he doesn’t do too much damage.”

“Mm hm…”

“That leaves just…Heavy. Big guy, carries around a huge gun. Pretty friendly though. Loves books. He’s Russian, but I don’t think he’s Communist.”

“That’s good. Seems like that would cause all sorts of problems.”

“I sent my paycheck while I was in town yesterday. It should arrive in a couple of days. You had any trouble taking care of things on your own?”

“No, not like I need to work after all, and Irene keeps me pretty busy when I don’t need to worry about cleaning and the like.

Engineer smiled. “Where is Irene anyway? I thought I’d have heard her by now.”

“She’s playing outside with her imaginary friends. Thought I’d wait to tell her. Hold on. Irene! Your daddy’s on the phone!”

Dell could hear a squeal in the background before excited chatter had him smiling fondly. “Daddy!”

“Hey Irene. You being good for Mommy?”

“Uh huh! I’ve been doing my homework and staying away from her feet and eating all my vegetables!”

Engineer chuckled. “Good girl.”

“Daddy, when are you coming home?”

Engineer winced. “I’ll be coming home as often as I can, but this job is…sort of like those men going to fight in the war, except I don’t have to worry about dying.”

“But why?”

“It’s complicated…” It really was. “I need funds, and…” He could barely bring himself to care about human lives. “Less chance of hurting someone with one of my projects. You know how you’re not allowed in my workshop because I don’t want you getting hurt by the tools?”

“Uh huh.”

“It’s like that but on a much bigger scale. The projects I’m working on could destroy my workshop back home.”

“Wow…What are you making?”

“Big guns and teleporters and medical assistance devices.”

“How do they work?”

“I’ll tell you about them when I come to visit.” Couldn’t talk about it over the phone.

Engineer got the distinct impression that Irene was pouting on the other end of the phone. Thankfully she decided not to try and press on. “Tell me a story?”

Engineer checked the skyline. The sun was starting to set. “It’s getting dark so it’ll have to be a short one. How ‘bout ‘The Three Little Pigs’?”

“Okay!”

Engineer gave a somewhat rushed telling of The Three Little Pigs, including changing his voices for the pigs and wolf and critiques on how to make straw and stick houses strong enough to not get blown down.

“And he lived happily ever after!”

“And that’s why you let experts build houses!” chimed Irene.

Engineer nodded. “That’s right. Now, it really is getting dark. You mind letting me talk to Mommy real quick before I head back in?”

“Okay, I love you Daddy!”

Engineer smiled. “Love you too, Sweetie.” He heard the sound of the phone being handed over. “Time to head in.”

“I heard. You be careful out there.”

“I will. You let me know if any problems come up.”

“I will.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

And then Engineer hung up, smiling sadly. He took a moment to crack his back before heading back to base.

Time to get ready for tomorrow’s fight.


	37. Not Much To Say Here

Heavy laughed as bullets tore apart the enemy Scout and Hunter. He’d killed dozens so far. It was a good day!

Well, Medic had left Heavy’s side to deal with other injuries, but that was his job. Heavy couldn’t fault him for that. Even if it had resulted in a very nasty death that one time.

Came with the job.

“You. Have. Failed.”

Heavy huffed. Annoying. He hated losing.

“Prepare for second round.”

Heavy blinked. He recalled reading about this in his contract. If a round was finished early enough they would work another round, but they had to start in the respawn room.

“Aw, c’mon! I’m bored!” complained Scout.

“We’re working,” snapped Transporter as she placed ammunition and medicine into her pockets and straps.

Scout crossed his arms. “You’re just scared you’ll lose.”

Transporter didn’t dignify this with a response.

“We will be fighting for briefcase again?” asked Heavy. If that was the case, he would likely be keeping BLUs out of their base again.

“I’m hoping for an Arena round,” admitted Medic.

Sniper gave him a weird look. “You got taken out right at the beginning.”

Medic nodded. “I’m hoping to do better. I know what to expect now after all!”

“You will capture the enemy’s intelligence,” announced the Administrator.

Medic scowled. “Verdammit!”

“Round begins in 60 seconds.”

The team collected ammunition and gave their weapons quick look overs up until the Administrator came to the last 10 seconds.

“3…2…1…Round Start.”

The Respawn doors opened, and most of the classes ran out. Heavy moved more slowly as he didn’t have any plans to try and get to the BLU base and steal their intelligence. He briefly noted that Medic had run off with the rest of the team, which meant he would have to be careful if he didn’t want to end up in respawn.

Heavy hated respawn so he would be very careful.


	38. Sniper Gets a Delivery

Sniper pulled the trigger. He made an annoyed sound as the bullet ended up hitting the BLU Soldier’s shoulder. Normally, his accuracy was perfect (…or almost perfect), but that required Sniper to be able to predict his targets’ movements to a certain extent.

People like Soldier were ridiculously unpredictable.

Sniper aimed for the BLU Demo instead. That one was a perfect headshot. Demo was pretty unpredictable too (must be the alcohol) but was still easier to headshot than Soldier.

Sniper reloaded, decided it was time to relocate, and stood just as Transporter came flying in through the window.

On the bright side, the resulting collision meant that she definitely wasn’t a Spy. “A little warning next time?” snapped Sniper.

Transporter groaned. “Right. Sorry.” She stood and took out a box of sniping rifle bullets, paused, and took out a small health pack too. “Need more ammo?”

Sniper shrugged, took the box and downed the bottle of questionable medical liquid. “Shouldn’t you be going for the Intelligence?”

Transporter scowled. “Scout kept trying to talk me into having a race with him. I’m not having a race in the middle of a fight.”

Sniper nodded in understanding. That sort of thing just wasn’t professional. He started walking away.

“Relocating?”

“Yeah, stayed here too long as it is.” And this conversation was only adding to it.

“Ah. Hold on.” Transporter looked out the window for a moment before firing. Then she fired a red portal onto the wall. “This should cut down on traveling time.”

Sniper stared at the portal, which was coming out near another sniper’s nest. “Is this allowed?”

Transporter shrugged. “Nothing in my contract says I can’t let other classes use my portals to get around.”

Sniper continued to stare cautiously at the portal. He’d seen Transporter use them all of last week with no ill effects, but it still made him nervous. He cautiously stuck his kukri through it. The portal didn’t suddenly close on it, and it didn’t feel weird. He slowly stepped through.

Now he was in a completely different location none the worse for wear. He glanced back at the portal just in time to see it close.

Retreat now being impossible, he hurried the rest of the way to the nest.


	39. The Hazards of Portals

Transporter had no idea why she helped Sniper like that.

Logically, it made sense. Help the other members of the team, and your team will be more likely to win. Transporter was just supposed to run supplies and maybe capture the intelligence during the rounds. She had no need or reason to play chauffeur as well.

Yet…She actually felt kind of good about helping Sniper out.

“We have captured the Intelligence!” announced the Administrator.

“Ha! I win!” said Scout over the com link.

Transporter rolled her eyes as she jumped out the window and shot a portal on the ground below.

“You still have to get the Intelligence back into our base,” Spy calmly reminded Scout.

“No, I mean I got to the Intelligence before Transporter!” explained Scout.

Transporter rolled her eyes. “I’m not racing you.”

“Because you know you’ll lose!”

“Because we’re working,” stressed Transporter. “Just get back to base.”

She popped out several yards away.

“Ha!”

Oh crap! It was the BLU Hunter. Transporter started blindly shooting portals in an attempt to get away from the BLU Hunter. She fell through, but the Hunter went after her.

And they landed on a very surprised Demo.

*Ka-Boom!*

Transporter woke up a moment later in respawn. “What happened?”

“Ya fell right on me sticky bombs,” said Demo, who was there as well. “Set them off.”

Transporter winced. “Sorry. I was trying to get away from the BLU Hunter.”

Demo shrugged. “Honest mistake.” He grabbed some more sticky bombs. “Could happen to anyone.”

Transporter let out a sigh of relief. “Right.”

“I’ve blown myself up a dozen times since I got here,” continued Demo.

“…We’ve only been here a week.”

“…I was experimenting. Thought I’d take advantage of respawn,” admitted Demo.

There was a loud gong sound before a counter went from ‘3’ to ‘2’. “Was that always there?” asked Transporter.

Demo shrugged.

“What the fuck?!” shouted Scout. “The Intelligence just disappeared!”

“I can confirm it disappeared,” deadpanned Engineer.

“There’s a counter in the respawn room,” said Transporter. “It counted down just now. 3 to 2.”

“…We have to capture the Intelligence 2 more times,” deadpanned Spy.

Transporter sighed, grabbed more supplies, and ran out of respawn.


	40. Loophole

Guard was on her own.

Engineer had built a sentry to guard the Intelligence, but then he’d left, stating he needed to set up a teleporter and a dispenser.

So it was just her and the sentry guarding the Intelligence.

Guard sighed. Then she poked the sentry with her baton. It just kept up its tracking. Guard went back to pacing in the hall.

She had to kick a Scout in the nards and toss him in front of the sentry. She moved to check the sentry’s clip and noted it was running low. “Engineer, the sentry needs to be reloaded.”

“All right. Heading back now.”

Guard nodded. She paced some more. A grenade bounced around the corner. Guard quickly brought her shield around. The explosion knocked her back, but the shield blocked the shrapnel and fire. She looked through the viewport and saw the BLU Soldier rushing for her. She blocked the shovel strikes with the shield, letting him knock her back in the hopes the sentry would detect him…and then a couple of grenades flew over their heads.

Guard could either turn to block the explosion and leave herself vulnerable to Soldier or keep blocking Soldier and take the full brunt of the explosion. She didn’t think she’d survive the explosion so she turned her shield on the grenades while doing her best to block Soldier’s attacks.

Surprisingly, she managed to block one attack before the grenades went off. That threw her enough for him to hit her in the head. Then she heard a gunshot.

What felt like a moment later she woke up in respawn. “Ow.”

“Aw Heck.” She blinked when she saw Engineer. “Who’s guarding the sentry?”

Guard shrugged. “Sorry. I got tag teamed by BLU Soldier and Demo.”

Engineer grabbed some metal and ran out of the respawn with Guard close behind. “How much ammo it’s got left?”

Guard blinked. “I called you and said it was running low.”

“No you didn’t.”

“I did. You said you’d be right there.”

“Mother…! That must have been the Spy right after he killed me!” realized Engineer.

Guard winced. “Oh. Guess I couldn’t tell over the radio.” She groaned. “They’re gonna get the Intelligence, aren’t they?”

As if to confirm this, the speakers crackled to life. “The enemy has captured our Intelligence!”

Engineer groaned. “They probably scrapped my sentry too. I’ll have to build a new one from scratch.”

“Sorry,” said Guard.

“You’re not the one who scrapped the sentry,” said Engineer. “I swear if I see those two…”

Guard wondered what he was planning to do considering she was pretty sure the two BLUs were both stronger and more experienced at direct combat than him.

Then again she wasn’t that experienced at fighting but she’d been doing pretty well so far. Maybe he had some sort of trick that would even things out. He was smart enough for that.

“The enemy has dropped the Intelligence!”

Guard let out a sigh of relief. Hopefully someone would show up with one of the Intelligences before too long.

“We have stolen the enemy Intelligence.”

That was about when Guard and Engineer reached their own Intelligence room. Engineer huffed as he surveyed the remains of his sentry and started quickly sorting what was salvageable. Guard took up her position at the door.

*Poof!*

Both jumped and spun towards the desk…which now had their Intelligence on it. “That wasn’t there before,” muttered Guard. It had been empty.

Engineer took a moment to handle the Intelligence to make sure it was real. “How in the name of Sam’s Hill did this end up back in here?”

“Teleporter?”

“You can’t get a teleporter that small,” muttered Engineer as he started looking around the office.

“Maybe it’s possessed.” Engineer gave her a look. “What?”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

Guard gave Engineer a look of disbelief. Of course ghosts were real! Although she probably would’ve noticed one by now…

Engineer decided to drop the subject and get back to building his sentry. He was muttering under his breath about how the Intelligence was able to reappear.

Guard decided she was going to assume it was magic until told otherwise and went back to keeping a look out.


	41. I've been distracted by Pokemon

Hunter stretched her arms up as she woke up in respawn. She turned on her communicator. “I killed BLU Medic. Was killed by BLU Heavy. Think I should have killed BLU Heavy first.”

“Yes, it is generally a good idea to attack the giant man with the minigun before you give yourself away,” drawled Spy.

Hunter shrugged as she reloaded her rifle and grabbed some kunai. “Who do I kill next? BLU Sniper? BLU Engie? Ooh! BLU Hunter?”

“Maybe you could go for the BLU Spy,” muttered Demo.

Hunter made a face as she ran out of respawn. “Spies hard to track. But I try. Kill anyone else I see.”

The Spies were nearly impossible to track. The BLU one anyway. She didn’t really bother with the RED one.

She found a noticeable trail (Definitely not a Spy) and started rapidly following it. She could tell it wasn’t Heavy or Transporter (Very unique shoe impressions), but she was still learning to tell the others apart. Demo and Soldier and Pyro had similar treads. If Scout was running his tread was easy to recognize, but if he was walking it didn’t look that different from Sniper’s.

Hunter figured she’d learn to tell them apart eventually.

Looks like it was the BLU Demo…laying down some sticky bombs all around one of the RED base’s doors. Hunter winced at the number before throwing a kunai at his throat. As the Demo was choking on his own blood, she walked over and shot him in the head to finish him off. She glanced at the sticky bombs. “Demo, is it safe to throw kunai at sticky bombs?”

“What’s a kunai?”

Hunter rolled her eyes. “Throwy stabby things.”

“Oh…Is that what those are? The explosion will probably send it flying in a random direction and set off any other bombs near ‘em.”

Hunter backed up. “I stay out of explosion range.”

“It’s got a radius of about 2 meters, but it can get bigger with more bombs.”

She was 10 meters away. “Okay. My aim is good.” Especially since the bombs weren’t moving. She carelessly tossed a kunai at a sticky bomb on its own. The explosion set off the other sticky bombs next to it, which set off the sticky bombs next to them, which pretty much destroyed the doorway.

Hunter looked around to see if anyone had been watching and then hurried away, deciding to pin the blame on the BLU Demo.


	42. Soldier is Hard to Write

“Victory!”

“Ha! Ya hear that? You maggots are crap at this!” shouted Soldier.

The BLU Demo tossed a bottle at Soldier, but as Soldier had been set on fire shortly before the match ended he ended up in respawn before the bottle could hit. “That one-eyed bastard couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn!”

Demo suddenly straightened from where he was putting away his bombs. “Wha’d ya say?!”

“The other one-eyed bastard!” said Soldier.

Demo was eyeing Soldier like he couldn’t decide if he should walk away or punch Soldier. Soldier was hoping for the latter, but Demo suddenly burped and apparently decided it wasn’t worth it.

Soldier let out an annoyed huff. Well, he'd just walk the perimeter instead.

Soldier had barely walked for 10 minutes when he saw Transporter running around the base. He’d seen her doing all sorts of acrobatics the other times he’d walked the perimeter, and he always did the same thing. “Get down here Private!”

Transporter looked down, made a sighing motion, and jumped down, landing perfectly on her feet without any sign of pain or injury.

Soldier decided this wasn’t enough to prove she wasn’t a Spy and started studying her closely to see if there was anything obvious that stuck out. He couldn’t smell any smoke, but Spies were crafty! They could probably find a way around that! He tapped her with his shovel.

“You know I could just fire a portal, right?” deadpanned Transporter.

“Not good enough!” said Soldier. “The BLU Spy could have stolen a portal gun!”

“A RED portal gun?” Transporter fired off a red portal to illustrate that.

“The BLU Spy can look like any RED! He could make a BLU portal look RED!”

Transporter gave Soldier a look and pointed to her boots.

“The BLU Spy could have stolen a pair of your falling shoes!”

“You need surgical modifications to wear them. I told you that before. And showed you,” muttered Transporter.

“Oh. Right.” Soldier grabbed one of her shoes. Transporter promptly hit him in the head with her crowbar. It caused his head or helmet to ring, but he still managed to pull off a shoe. “This is a real falling shoe!”

Transporter grabbed the shoe back and snapped it back into place. “Stop. Doing. That.”

“I will do whatever I deem necessary to keep BLU from infiltrating our base!” proclaimed Soldier.

“You’re going to damage the implants if you keep doing that.” Transporter paused with a look of realization. “Shit. I need to talk to Engineer and Medic.”

Soldier narrowed his eyes. “About what?”

“About what we’ll do if I need to replace my leg implants. They’re not too complicated…” She walked away, muttering about mad scientists.

Seemed legit to him.


	43. This Was Not Planned

Medic had been feeding his doves and going over some notes from an experiment when there was a knock on the infirmary doors. “Demo, I do not have a hangover cure.”

The door opened to a confused looking Transporter. “What.”

“Ah, my apologies. Demo has come in several times asking about a hangover cure, which does not exist in the form that he wants it to.” Medic hid his notes in a folder and gave Transporter a scary smile. “Something I can do for you?”

Transporter eyed Medic nervously. “There’s something I didn’t mention before that I need to talk to you and Engineer about.”

Medic lit up. “Is it about your spinal implant?”

“No.” Medic’s disappointment must have shown because she rolled her eyes. “Let me guess: You want to cut out my spine and see how it works.”

“We’re going to find the BLU Transporter during the next Arena mode,” reassured Medic as one of his doves decided to land on Transporter’s head.

Transporter tensed. “Right…” She pointed at Thea. “Are they housebroken?”

Medic laughed. “You can’t housebreak birds.”

Transporter briefly looked disgusted before returning to full seriousness. “Look, I need you to look at my legs.”

“Oh, did you damage them in a fall?”

“That’s never gonna happen,” muttered Transporter.

“Hm?”

“Look, surgical modifications are necessary to wear the boots, and I want to be sure they can be replaced if they get damaged,” said Transporter.

That sounded interesting. Medic stood and gestured towards an examination table. “Take a seat and let me have a look.”

Transporter walked over, hopped onto the table, and took off one of the boots. Medic lifted up the leg. A prominent scar went across her knee with a pair of metal ports on either side of it. Medic glanced at the boot and noticed a couple a plugs that looked like they went into the ports. Engineer would probably be able to tell more about the technical aspect. Medic pulled out his battlefield com and turned it on. “Hello? Engineer? Do you still have your communicator?”

It was silent for a moment before he heard a voice respond. “Hm? Hello?”

Oh good, it was the one Medic was looking for. “Hello Herr Engineer! Would you mind coming to the infirmary? Transporter has shown me something that I think you will find quite interesting.”

“…Is it about the thing we talked about before?”

Transporter rolled her eyes.

“No, but I think it’s related. Might be useful when we get to the BLU Transporter.” They used the same equipment, right? Oh well, Engineer would be able to figure it out. Medic turned his attention back to Transporter’s modifications.

Another pair of ports were on either side of Transporter’s ankles, and there was a long scar going from the posterior of her ankle to the posterior of her knee. Her foot itself looked normal. Medic took a moment to try and remove Transporter’s other boot before she did it for him. Medic had just determined the same scarring and implants were on both of Transporter’s legs when Engineer arrived.

Engineer studied Transporter’s boots curiously for a moment before noticing the implants in Transporter’s legs. “Huh. Are these like the implant on your back?”

“I don’t think so,” said Transporter. “I can live without them, but I need them to wear the boots properly.”

“Sounds simple enough,” said Engineer as he looked over the implants. “It doesn’t look like it has any obvious mechanisms or electronics. Let me take a look at the connecting points on one of your boots.”

Engineer could do that. Meanwhile, Medic had an idea. “Lie down so I can get an X-ray.” Transporter thankfully did so. Medic quickly positioned her legs so he’d only get the right leg, put down a ruler and ‘R’ that would show up on the X-ray, and rolled the machine over. “Any chance you are pregnant?”

“I don’t think I can even have children,” said Transporter.

“I would be happy to try and fix that,” said Medic as he plopped a lead apron on her body and grabbed Engineer. “It should go off in a minute…”

Engineer nodded, familiar with the dangers of radiation, but took the boot he was studying with him. “I gotta wonder where Port got all this technology. It seems like the sort of thing Mann Co. would kill to get their hands on…Heck, I’d kill to get my hands on it even if I can’t understand half of the stuff it does.”

“Let’s ask her,” said Medic, who knew that the X-ray was done by now. He started switching out the film. “So, out of curiosity, where did you get all of this?” asked Medic.

Transporter tensed. “A computer.”

Medic raised an eyebrow but shrugged. “Who performed the surgeries?”

“…No idea. Maybe the computer.”

“That would require robotic limbs with very sophisticated movement and servos,” interrupted Engineer. “It’s possible, but it’s not something that you could keep secret.”

Transporter shrugged as Medic re-positioned her legs. “I wouldn’t know.”

Medic quickly dragged Engineer back out so the second X-ray could be taken. Engineer was still trying to look over the long fall boots and nearly tripped over a dove as they walked back in. Transporter was already sitting up. “Do you need to do anything else?”

Medic grinned. “Well, I’d like to see what your legs look like on the inside.”

Transporter tensed and pointed her portal gun at Medic’s feet. “I will put you in an endless fall.”

Medic weighed the pros and cons before deciding that he’d look at the X-rays first to see if there were any surprises. “All right.”

Transporter eventually managed to get her boots back from Engineer and left. Engineer left shortly after stating the need to make a record of what he’d seen. Medic wrote down his preliminary findings before moving on to developing the X-ray film.

There was a certain art to developing film negatives, and it was something Medic enjoyed when he had the opportunity. Choosing contrast paper, mixing the developing chemicals just so, timing the exposure to chemicals; it required precision almost like a surgical procedure.

And this time, Medic found something amazing.

“Unglaublich…”*

The implants were there, plain to see, but they were connected to bones…that were not bones. The entire skeletal structure from the knees down was the stark white of metal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Incredible


	44. Pyro's Hard to Write Too

Engie told Pyro it was their turn to cook tonight. For everyone. And Pyro was excited about that. It was nice sharing happiness with others and, along with rainbows, their food always made them happy.

They’d never cooked for more than just themselves, but they were pretty sure they managed to make enough with all the peppers and meat they’d found in the cold box.

So now they had put all the food on the table and were waiting for everyone to sit down and eat.

Everyone sat down with smiles on their faces…except for Guard. She giggled when she came in and had to step out. Then she giggled when she came in again. This continued for several minutes before Guard gave up, apparently deciding to find less funny food.

Her loss.

Pyro happily ate several mouthfuls. The food made their mouth tingle. They didn’t know why the others didn’t make their food tingly. It made food taste so much better!

Pyro looked around the table and blinked.

Where did everybody go?


	45. They Really Should Have Seen This Coming

“Dairy works well for neutralizing pain caused by the chemical compound found in spicy foods,” said Medic.

Soldier promptly grabbed a carton of milk and started drinking straight from it. Fortunately, there were multiple cartons so Demo was able to grab one of his own.

He didn’t really pay attention to anything else until his mouth had gone from ‘Hellfire’ to ‘Throbbing pain’. He wiped his mouth and gasped a little. “What the Hell did they put in that food?!”

“Cayenne,” said Guard. Everyone looked at her. She took a bite out of an apple that Demo had only just noticed. “Some of those peppers that make me gag…That one that I can’t remember the name of…”

Spy, who looked fine (Had he even eaten anything?) grabbed one of the spice containers next to the oven. “Jalapenos, sriracha, and I’m not sure I’ve heard of this one.”

Hunter slammed down a glass that looked to have had some milk in it as well. “What do we eat now?”

Heavy pulled out some bread before grabbing a package of sandwich meat that was next to Guard.

Scout spat out…cream cheese. Demo glanced in the fridge. They were out of milk. “Why did you let that nutcase cook?!” shouted Scout.

Engineer was wiping his forehead off with a cloth he’d pulled from somewhere. “It wasn’t spicy last time they cooked! They set it on fire, but it still tasted all right!”

Demo sighed. “So, no more cooking for Pyro?”

“Not without supervision at least,” said Spy. “Their sense of taste seems…defective.”

Demo couldn’t help but make a face at the thought of getting stuck with that job.

“Did you drink that whole gallon of milk?” asked Transporter.

That was directed towards Soldier who now had an empty milk container. “Affirmative!” Soldier made a burping sound.

“Huh, I didn’t think that was supposed to be possible,” commented Medic.

Soldier abruptly ran to the sink and started throwing up. Demo laughed and rubbed Soldier’s back. “Nice to be on the other end for once.”

“He’s not drunk,” deadpanned Spy.

“But he’s throwing up from drinking too much,” argued Demo.

Hunter blinked. “Milk makes you sick?”

“Only if you drink too much at once,” said Medic.

Hunter groaned. “So strange.”

Demo grabbed a bottle of water and handed it to Soldier, who’d stopped throwing up. Solder gargled and spat before actually swallowing some. “…I’m going to bed.”

Soldier left just as Heavy placed a huge platter of sandwiches on the counter, already munching on one. Everyone grabbed one, their appetites not affected in the least by Soldier’s episode.


	46. I got distracted by Final Fantasy

Somehow, Spy had been stuck with the task of cleaning up the mess their dinner had caused. He’d gone to let the sink run before he recalled that if they used up the stored running water, they’d have to wash with tainted water.

Spy made do by dumping several bottles of water down the sink until the smell of vomit had lessened to a tolerable degree. He slipped off his jacket and gloves and rolled up his sleeves as he went to check on the leftover food and see if anything was salvageable.

The fumes from the food had lessened as it cooled much to Spy’s relief. He hadn’t even eaten any, and his eyes had still ended up watering horribly. Spy studied the food and decided that he didn’t care if Pyro actually liked it. It was going in the garbage where it belonged.

Spy cleaned the sink, cleaned the dishes, took out the trash, and cleaned his hands. His chore done, he put his gloves and jacket back on and lit a fresh cigarette.

Glanced in the secret compartment. Everything still there.

Spy slipped his cigarette case back into his inner jacket pocket and hurried to his room…Which was still sorely lacking as he had yet to receive several possessions that he’d requested. He sneered at the low quality mattress and sheets before pouring himself some cognac and heading to the recreation room to see if today’s newspaper was still intact.

Medic and Guard were already there. Medic was scribbling on papers spread over one of the tables. Guard was curled up in a chair and staring at a corner of the ceiling that looked completely uninteresting to Spy. “I have to say, you two do not usually spend time here.”

Medic made an annoyed sound. “I spilled some chemicals and have to let the infirmary air out.”

Spy wrinkled his nose at the thought. “And how long will that take?”

“The windows are quite large and the ventilation is quite good. I imagine it will not take longer than an hour,” mused Medic as he continued looking over his papers. “All I need to worry about is getting my doves back in place.”

Spy nodded and took a sip of his drink before glancing at Guard. She averted her gaze. She was about as talkative as usual then.

Spy managed to find a copy of the newspaper under Medic’s work and slip it out. Nothing local was particularly interesting simply because it was so stupid, but they did have some national news even if the wording was horrendous.

He really needs to find an easier way to get information on the outside world.


	47. She has issues

Guard slipped out of the rec room as it became too awkward for her comfort. She really hoped her room was empty when she returned to it.

She put her ear to the door. No sound. She opened the door. Nothing obvious. She spent a few minutes looking in every nook and cranny before deciding her room was empty. She rifled through her cabinet and pulled out a bundle of sage.

Guard still couldn’t believe they’d supplied her with the plant she’d asked for. She’d figured she’d have to find a new store to buy it from. She lit it on fire and walked around her room for a few minutes.

Hopefully the others would assume it was Pyro if they smelled any smoke. She didn’t want to have to explain what she was doing.

Guard kept burning the sage until her throat started to itch and hurriedly put the fire out and stashed it back in her cabinet.

Was there anything else for her to do? Guard went through her list for the day: Wake up, eat breakfast, fight, maybe break for lunch, fight, eat dinner, wash as needed. Simple enough.

Guard changed into her pajamas, climbed into bed, and stared at the ceiling as her body failed to go to sleep.

It was going to be another long night.


	48. Wow, it's been a while since I added something

Sniper woke up when his alarm went off as usual. He slapped it off with a groan before slowly sitting up with a big yawn. He put on the coffee and started getting dressed.

He didn’t bother looking out the window until after he’d started drinking coffee and nearly spat it back out. “What the bloody hell?!”

The base and environment outside were different from last night. They weren’t too different; it was still a desert area, but the base was completely different.

Very suspicious, Sniper grabbed his weapons, opting to use his submachine gun rather than the sniper rifle, and cautiously left his van, checking for any surprise attacks.

Nothing attacked Sniper as he made his way to the base, although he did hear some shouting. He headed towards it.

It was Soldier. “We have been abducted, and we must escape and kill our captors and return to our base!”

“We haven’t been abducted!” said Engineer, sounding very exasperated, like he’d explained this several times already.

Sniper did a quick headcount and found everyone was present. “What the bloody Hell is going on?”

“We were transferred,” said Spy. “You did read your contract, didn’t you?”

Of course he did. Sniper went through what he remembered…Oh, right. The contract had said Respawn would be used to transfer them to different bases as needed. He hadn’t thought respawn was real so he’d ignored it. At least he had an explanation now. He relaxed a bit.

“Where the fuck are we anyway?” asked Scout.

“Gravel Pits,” said Engineer. “They mine gravel here when we’re not using it for a battlefield.”

“And we will use the gravel to beat the BLUs to death!” proclaimed Soldier.

“We’re not gonna do any mining,” deadpanned Engineer.

“So, we gonna eat or what?” asked Scout.

“Yes, because skipping breakfast can have serious consequences,” lectured Medic. “Will you be joining us Herr Sniper?”

Sniper thought for a moment. He preferred to eat alone in his van, but he was already over here, and he didn’t have enough time to go back to his van, eat, and come back. He shrugged. “Sure.”


	49. Google Japanese Breakfasts

Hunter really needed to start getting up early enough to cook her own breakfast.

Hunter had thought the most she’d have to get used to was substituting bread for rice, but it was so much more than that. They hardly ever ate fish, there were no soups, and the one time she’d tried a soda she swore it nearly melted her mouth.

Usually, RED ate cereal for breakfast since it was fast and easy to prepare. Cereal was very different from rice or bread. She spooned some into her mouth. It was cold and soggy. She drooped.

“What’s with you?” asked Scout

“American food is very different than what I thought it was,” admitted Hunter. “No rice, no fish, no miso…”

“What’s a miso?” asked Scout.

“Type of soup.” Hunter sighed. “Should go shopping this week to find some and make my breakfasts. And onigiri.”

“Oni-what now?”

“Ah, do not know English word. Sticky rice packed together and stuffed with…usually fish.”

“How do you get the rice to stick together?”

Hunter gave him a confused look. “It is sticky rice. It sticks to everything.”

Scout made a face. “That sounds gross!”

Now Hunter just felt indignant. “Is not gross! Everyone eat it!”

“I don’t eat it!”

“Everyone in Japan!”

“Why!?”

“Because it’s good rice!”

“Stop fighting!” shouted Demo. “Yer givin’ me a headache.”

Hunter and Scout turned to yell at Demo only to get an eyeful of Heavy giving them a look that suggested if they kept up their argument he was going to find an excuse to hurt them. They shut up and went back to eating their cereal.

Hunter was so cooking dinner tonight. She didn’t care if it was actually her turn. She needed a taste of home.


End file.
